The Highway of Tears Revisited
Highway 16 is one of the most beautiful roads in Canada and one of the saddest.
For decades, Indigenous women and girls have experienced disproportionately high levels of violence across Canada. Along Highway 16, a troubling pattern emerged. Young women vanished while travelling between communities. Some were later found murdered. Others have never been found at all. What became known as the Highway of Tears was not merely a series of criminal investigations. It became a story about isolation, vulnerability, transportation, poverty, and the value society places on certain lives.
The Pacific Northwest of British Columbia is connected to the rest of the province by a long ribbon of pavement known as Highway 16. Stretching approximately 724 kilometres between Prince George and Prince Rupert, the route traverses some of the most beautiful and isolated landscapes in Canada. It is a highway of mountain ranges, river valleys, dense forests, and immense distances. For decades, however, it has also carried another name: the Highway of Tears.
Visitors arrive from every corner of the world to experience northern British Columbia. They rent campers and recreational vehicles. They book rooms in roadside motels. They pitch tents under towering spruce forests and gather around campfires beside glacier-fed rivers. They come to witness wilderness on a scale difficult to comprehend elsewhere, where mountains dominate horizons and communities are separated not by minutes but by hours.
They come to admire a landscape of rock, forest, water, wildlife, and history.
It is a magnificent country.
It can also be an unforgiving one.
The road twists through Burns Lake, Houston, Smithers, Terrace, and numerous smaller communities before descending alongside the Skeena River toward Prince Rupert and the coast beyond. Along much of the route, vast stretches of highway separate settlements. Even during the busy tourist season, isolation is a defining feature of the landscape.
This immense highway begins in Prince George, British Columbia, a city situated at the meeting of great rivers beneath a high plateau. The Nechako joins the Fraser there before the waters continue southward toward distant destinations. Highway 16 travels west instead, crossing mountain ranges and major watersheds as it follows rivers toward the Pacific.
Long before the first surveyors laid pavement through these valleys, Indigenous nations built societies throughout the region. Their histories stretch back thousands of years and remain deeply connected to the land. The territories of the Dakelh, Wet'suwet'en, Babine, Gitxsan, Tsimshian, Nisga'a, and many other nations are crossed or connected by Highway 16. Their cultures, languages, and traditions differ greatly, but many communities share a painful reality that became increasingly impossible to ignore.
Too many daughters, sisters, mothers, cousins, and friends disappeared along this road. To step beyond the pavement is to enter a country where experience matters. Wilderness skills remain valuable. Distances are immense. Weather changes abruptly. Many roads lead toward places even more remote than the highway itself.
By the early years of the twenty-first century, public awareness began to grow. Families who had long sought answers found greater opportunities to tell their stories publicly. Media organizations from across Canada turned their attention to northern British Columbia. Questions that had lingered for years were reaching a broader audience.
One disappearance in particular drew national attention.
On June 21, 2002, twenty-five-year-old Nicole Hoar disappeared while travelling from Prince George to Smithers. Originally from Alberta and working as a tree planter, she intended to surprise her sister with an unexpected birthday visit. Like many young people familiar with northern British Columbia, she was accustomed to travelling through the region. She vanished before reaching her destination.
The search for Nicole Hoar attracted extensive media attention throughout Canada. No trace of her has ever been found.
The public attention surrounding her disappearance focused new scrutiny on northern British Columbia and on a growing list of women who had disappeared or been murdered along the highway corridor. Many Indigenous families had already spent years seeking answers. Increasingly, Canadians began to realize these were not isolated incidents.
What began as a collection of separate investigations eventually contributed to the development of the RCMP's E-PANA project. Initially focused on a core group of cases associated with Highway 16, the investigation later expanded significantly. Today, eighteen cases are formally linked to E-PANA, though Indigenous organizations, communities, and advocates continue to argue that the true number of missing and murdered women associated with the region extends far beyond the official list.
The women whose names became most associated with the Highway of Tears include Delphine Nikal, Ramona Wilson, Roxanne Thiara, Alisha Germaine, Lana Derrick, Nicole Hoar, Tamara Chipman, and Aielah Saric-Auger among others. Their individual circumstances differed, but together they came to symbolize a larger crisis. Many were teenagers. Several were last seen hitchhiking. Many were Indigenous.
Families waited for answers.
Years turned into decades.
Many continue to wait.
As awareness grew, organizations throughout northern British Columbia stepped forward to support families and advocate for change. Carrier Sekani Family Services became one of the leading voices drawing public attention to the crisis. Family members sought more than investigations. They sought recognition, support, accountability, and prevention.
The issue could no longer be viewed solely through the lens of criminal justice.
Questions emerged about why so many people relied upon hitchhiking between communities in the first place.
Northern British Columbia encompasses an immense area, yet transportation options historically remained limited. For many residents without vehicles, travelling between communities often involved difficult choices. Transportation was identified repeatedly as a major safety concern.
These concerns became a central focus during the Highway of Tears Symposium held in Prince George. Families, Indigenous leaders, government officials, police representatives, and community organizations gathered to discuss the causes underlying the crisis and to identify solutions.
More than individual criminal acts were discussed.
Participants examined racism.
They examined poverty.
They examined access to services.
They examined transportation.
The symposium ultimately produced thirty-three recommendations intended to improve safety and prevent future loss. Those recommendations ranged from public-awareness initiatives and family support services to transportation improvements and policy reforms.
In the years that followed, some progress occurred. Public awareness increased dramatically. Memorials were established. Commemorative events continued. Transportation initiatives along Highway 16 were introduced after years of advocacy, reducing but not eliminating transportation barriers faced by many northern residents.
The Highway of Tears nevertheless remains one of Canada's most enduring and painful unsolved mysteries.
Much remains unknown.
Many investigations remain open.
Not every family has received answers.
Yet the significance of these women extends beyond the circumstances of their disappearances.
Their stories forced Canadians to confront realities that had long existed beyond the attention of much of the country. The issue ultimately became part of a wider national conversation about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, drawing attention to systemic inequalities affecting Indigenous communities across Canada.
The road between Prince George and Prince Rupert remains what it has always been: a route through extraordinary landscapes, remarkable communities, and Indigenous territories rich in history and culture.
But it is also a place marked by absence.
A place where families continue to seek justice.
A place where memory refuses to fade.
The women of the Highway of Tears are more than victims of unsolved crimes. They are daughters, sisters, mothers, friends, and members of communities that continue to remember them. Their lives challenged Canada to examine not only who committed acts of violence, but why conditions existed that allowed so many women to become vulnerable in the first place.
More than a generation after many of the disappearances, that challenge remains.
The highway remains.
The questions remain.
And so does the responsibility to remember.
Originally written July 15, 2009 by Mack McColl for CrimeWatch Canada. Revised and updated November 2026.
Author's Note (2026)
This article was originally written on July 15, 2009. It has been revised to reflect developments and understanding that have emerged in the years since its original publication. While many observations about the geography, communities, and realities of northern British Columbia remain unchanged, the understanding of the Highway of Tears has expanded considerably. What was once viewed primarily as a regional crime story is now widely recognized as part of the broader national crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The RCMP's E-PANA investigation expanded beyond the original list of cases discussed in early reporting, while transportation and public-safety initiatives have since emerged in response to recommendations advanced by families, Indigenous leaders, and community advocates.
