The Pacific North West is connected to the province by a long neck of highway from Prince George to Prince Rupert, B.C., which for the past seven years has borne the name Highway of Tears. The Pacific North West of British Columbia is one of the most beautiful places in the world and accommodating to visitors from the four corners of the earth, but for the First Nation women of the region it has become a dangerous place to be alone on that highway.
This 700 km long twisting road supposes to run east to west, but doesn’t always, jogging north past Burns Lake and south suddenly at Houston with immense stretches of emptiness even in the tourist season, which out there is typically Canadian, short and sweet. This monumental highway begins at the City of Prince George, B.C., set beneath a high plateau, surrounded by shallow lakes at a meeting of great rivers, population 75,000. The Nechako roars into the Fraser River and flows south at Prince George, but the Highway of Tears travels toward a different major watershed. Highway 16 crosses mountain ranges and runs beside roaring rivers until the highway meets the Skeena River and drops dramatically toward an archipelago containing the City of Prince Rupert, population 13,000.
People from around the world come to marvel at the pristine wilderness and rent campers and RVs and visit provincial campgrounds near towns like Terrace, Houston, Smithers, and Burns Lake. They stay in dozens of modestly priced motels at inflated ‘seasonal’ rates, and pitch tents and burn campfires late in the evening when it still gets chilly in the depth of summer. They come to marvel at how much of British Columbia is rock, massive rock, and wildlife, and First Nation history.
You need survival skills if you step off Highway 16 West and any of the spiny intersections that lead to places even more remote containing loftier sceneries, and perhaps histories, but those are less told. The First Nations built civilizations in the Pacific North West in their own profoundly interesting ways. In the western area of the long highway the nations observed the Potlatch, a hereditary system that remains among their complex Gitxsan, Tsimshian, and Nisga’a national cultures. Closer to Prince George they have The People of the Rivers, and a historic crossroads that evolved into a modern economic hub.
Dahkeh, Sekani, Babine, Wetsuwetin, Gitxsan, Tsimshian, and Nisga’a, are the nations crossed or intersecting along the way between Prince George and Prince Rupert. And while they are vastly different in culture, politics, resources, and wiles, they agree something terrible connects them down Highway 16 West. The disappearance and murder of young First Nation women who step onto the Highway of Tears to hitchhike, this must stop.
Nine women aged 14-25 have gone missing or been murdered along the highway since 1990. It was the unique disappearance of a white woman from Red Deer, Alberta, named Nicole Hoar, on the first day of summer in 2002, that put the region under a media magnifying glass. Nicole, a young woman from who worked summers as a tree planter, disappeared when she hitchhiked west of Prince George on her way to Smithers to visit a sister.
As a veteran tree-planter Nicole must have felt at ease with the territory and people of the area; so comfortable was she that Nicole failed to inform family and friends of her travel plans or whereabouts during the week leading up to this disappearance. She wanted to surprise her sister in Smithers with an unexpected birthday visit. When Nicole disappeared it sparked a massive search that brought national media attention onto Highway 16 West. No sign of Nicole Hoar has ever been found.
It was at this time that the actual number of female victims of foul play became widely understood, and yet the murders and disappearances continued. This major roadway became the Highway of Tears in 2002 as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the number of murdered and missing women. These young First Nation women, with the exception of Nicole, have either disappeared or been found dead in the territory.
These are the young women who compose the core list of missing women in the RCMP investigation along the Highway of Tears:
1. Aielah Saric-Auger: Slain and unsolved. Age 14, and a student at D.P. Todd Secondary School in Prince George. She was last seen by her family on Feb. 2, 2006, and her body was found on Feb. 10, 2006, in a ditch along Highway 16, slightly east of the city, approximately 15 kilometres from Prince George. Aielah’s body was found on the eastern-bound highway near an active ski resort road.
2. Tamara Chipman: Missing and unsolved. Age 22, disappeared on Sept. 21, 2005. She was last seen hitchhiking on Highway 16 near the Prince Rupert industrial park. Tamara Chipman is one of the most recent victims, gone missing in late 2005. She was a young mother, last seen hitchhiking from Prince Rupert to her home in Terrace, and she vanished without a trace.
3. Nicole Hoar: Missing and unsolved. Age 25, from Alberta, was working in the Prince George area as a tree planter. She was last seen on June 21, 2002, hitchhiking form Prince George to Smithers on Highway 16.
4. Lana Derrick: Missing and unsolved. Age 19, disappeared on Oct. 7, 1995. Last seen at a gas station near Terrace, travelling east on Hwy 16 to her home in the Hazelton area. She was enrolled in studies at Northwest Community College in Terrace.
5. Alisha Germaine: Slain and unsolved. Age 15, lived in Prince George, her body was found on Dec. 9, 1994.
6. Roxanne Thiara: Slain and unsolved. Age 15, disappeared in November, 1994, from Prince George. Her body was found just off Highway 16, near Burns lake.
7. Ramona Wilson: Slain and unsolved. Age 16, was hitchhiking to her friend's home in Smithers on June 11, 1994. Her remains were found near the Smithers Airport, along Highway 16, in April, 1995.
8. Delphine Nikal: Missing and unsolved. Age 16, disappeared form Smithers on June 14, 1990. She was hitchhiking east on Highway 16 from Smithers to her home in Telkwa.
9. Cicilla Anne Nikal: Missing and unsolved. Disappeared in 1989. Was last seen in Smithers near Highway 16.
As these losses became thoroughly publicized, and the Highway of Tears was named, RCMP formed a task force to pull together pieces of the immense puzzle behind these unsolved cases. By this time Carrier-Sekani Family Services, a leading First Nation agency in Prince George, hired a person to create public awareness and liaise with police, government, and media. In 2007 the investigation expanded farther afield than anybody used to think, and the task force included missing and murdered women cases elsewhere in the B.C. Interior and Okanagan, and the western leg of Yellowhead Highway from Edmonton to Jasper.
People in the City of Prince George sit in coffee houses and speculate whether it’s a lone truck driver who does short haul trips or a guy in an RV a la Willie Pickton; or is it some other form of foul play? Amnesty International has compiled a different total, stating that over 30 women in the past 30 years have gone missing or been victims of unsolved murder on the 700 km Highway of Tears. Somehow they climb off the asphalt to disappear.
The most recent murder of Aielah Saric-Auger was in 2006, and she was 14 yrs old. Tamara Chipman was 22 when she vanished in the autumn of 2005, a young mother last seen hitchhiking from Prince Rupert to her home in Terrace. Tamara’s family asked communities to re-ignite a greater publicity effort along the highway to stop whatever is happening to these women.
Other girls and women are gone and their families won’t let them be forgotten. Monica Ignas was 15 when she disappeared from the highway in December 1974, and 27-year-old Alberta Williams vanished on Aug. 27, 1989. Cecilia Anne Nikal, a cousin of Delphine Nikal, has been missing since 1989.
One tiny village Moricetown Indian Reserve that stands above the Moricetown Canyon on the Bulkley River in Wetsuwetin territory has lost three women from the tightly-knit community on the highway’s corner. It is one of most picturesque locations on the highway and this place is undergoing a strangely disproportionate loss of young women among those missing or dead on this highway that holds one of Canada’s major unsolved mysteries.
These women are more than fading memories or tragic mysteries, for they shine a light on disparity in society, therefore they have not died in vain. Groups like Carrier Sekani Family Services bring together families and create an even brighter light of awareness about the missing women. The families in turn seek answers from the police about the direction in their investigations of these murders and unsolved crimes.
The families, the police task force, and private investigators shine the light on the women who became victims of the most extreme expression of social disparity that is inflicted on First Nation women. Sometimes these people get help. Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy of Toronto went to Prince George in October of 2006, where she discussed the production of her film Highway of Tears. She was interviewed by reporter Frank Peebles, Prince George Citizen. Pebbles noted in his article that the filmmaker Chinoy was “struck by the overt bigotry she encountered in the region.”
The bigotry was worse than the filmmaker had imagined because the question on so many local lips was, according to Chinoy, “What did these women expect?” Apparently they were living the high risk lifestyle. She may be exaggerating the local perception because it is a rare individual who would suggest any of these women deserved or invited their mysterious fates.
Maybe she was promoting ticket sales, but Chinoy also asked, "Would they say the same thing if 10 or 12 local white girls were raped or murdered or disappeared on the same road?" In that remark she argues correctly about the reality of these murders, but to contain bigotry to Highway 16 West is quite inaccurate. Highway 16 West being a bloody mess is a reflection of a terrible disregard for one particular segment of Canadian society, young Aboriginal women, and it’s everywhere in the land.
When Lisa Krebs, the former of CSFS liaison person, discusses the Highway of Tears she takes time to make a notable point in the crisis, that when the wider community has gathered in Prince George to address the urgent concerns of families, they do so in Lheidli Tenneh land. It was Lheidli Tenneh that hosted a large symposium at the city’s CN Centre in the fall of 2007, “with well over 500 people attending.” Ms. Krebs was registrar, “It contained local government representatives, family members of missing or murdered women, provincial and federal government officials working over two days.”
The extensive meeting broke into groups to answer questions about the systemic causes of these missing and lost lives. It involves racism, everybody was able to agree, and poverty has a terrible role, and the extent of this poverty west of Prince George includes a missing transportation system. The large scale symposium ended up releasing thirty-three recommendations running along the lines of four basic themes.
“The final report provides clear directions for the task of preventing further losses,” said Lisa Krebs. The recommendations included public awareness signs, billboards in centres all along the highway, public events like the unveiling of the Highway of Tears bench overlooking the Highway 16 exit to the west of Prince George, family members receiving support for efforts to preserve memories, and hope for final reconciliations; these are things the symposium endorsed and encouraged. Also, they proposed shifts in public policy, some searching for solutions to the transportation needs found in Northern B.C.. Lisa did this difficult job over a two year period when the memories were still fresh, and she dealt with the raw emotions of dozens of despairing family members.
