Highway of Tears
The Highway of Tears is a 450-mile stretch of Yellowhead Highway 16 in British Columbia, Canada, recognized for the tragic disappearances and murders of numerous women, predominantly from indigenous communities. Between 1969 and 2006, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officially documented eighteen cases, although local indigenous groups argue the actual number could be as high as fifty. The area is characterized by isolation, dense forests, and a lack of public transportation, which has made it difficult for residents, often relying on hitchhiking, to travel safely.
The indigenous communities along the highway have raised concerns about inadequate investigations into these cases, attributing this to socio-economic inequalities and systemic racism. Many believe that the police response was insufficient, particularly regarding the needs and circumstances of indigenous women. Despite recent efforts, including a $30 million initiative announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016 to address these issues, many cases remain unsolved, and the community continues to seek justice and safety. The Highway of Tears serves as a stark reminder of the broader issues of violence against indigenous women in Canada, an ongoing concern that calls for increased awareness and action.
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Highway of Tears
The Highway of Tears is a 450-mile (724-km) section of Yellowhead Highway 16 in British Columbia, Canada, where many women have been murdered or disappeared. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), eighteen women vanished in the area between 1969 and 2006. However, local indigenous communities dispute this number and claim that it is closer to fifty. By 2024, almost all the cases remained unsolved.
Families of the victims and community activists contend that the police did not immediately and adequately investigate the women’s disappearances because most of them were indigenous. (Twenty-three First Nations live in communities along the Highway of Tears.) Some claim that socio-economic inequalities limited the resources available to investigate the murders and disappearances. Others argue that the crimes were not properly investigated because of racism and a lack of knowledge about the problems affecting the indigenous.
Background
The Highway of Tears refers to a part of Yellowhead Highway 16 that stretches from the city of Prince George to Prince Rupert, a Pacific port. The 450-mile roadway is bordered by logging roads and indigenous communities, which are among the poorest in the nation.
The Highway of Tears is a perilous place. It is mostly isolated and flanked by dense brush and thick forests. The enormous stretch of roadway lacks lighting and traffic cameras. Until 2017, residents of the area had no public transportation. To get from place to place, they walked along the roadway hoping to hitch a ride with a passerby. And after 2017, the public transportation along the highway was limited. People who missed the bus or whose work schedule did not align with the transportation had to find another way to get to work. As of 2018, many still relied on hitchhiking on the Highway of Tears.
Racism against the indigenous is rampant in British Columbia, and the region is notorious for crimes against indigenous women. A 2014 report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights indicated that the number of incidents of violence against indigenous women in Canada is disproportionately high, considering that the indigenous make up only a small percentage of the population. Throughout the nation, the number of missing and murdered indigenous women is higher in British Columbia than in any other province or territory.
Overview
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) acknowledges only eighteen women who were murdered or disappeared along the Highway of Tears from 1969 to 2006. These women were the subject of an investigation conducted by the RCMP in 2005, called Project E-Pana. However, the family members of the victims and advocates of indigenous women’s rights in Canada claim this number is misleading because more women vanished during this time and after 2006. They also feel that the area taken into consideration by the RCMP was too narrow. They contend that the RCMP should have widened the area it investigated, and if it did, the number of missing and murdered women would be closer to fifty.
Victims
Of the eighteen disappearances investigated, the RCMP acknowledges the following thirteen women as murder victims: twenty-seven-year-old Gloria Moody (1969); eighteen-year-old Micheline Pare (1970); nineteen-year-old Gale Weys (1974); nineteen-year-old Pamela Darlington (1973); fifteen-year-old Monica Ignas (1974); sixteen-year-old Colleen MacMillen (1974); twelve-year-old Monica Jack (1978); thirty-three-year-old Maureen Mosie (1981); twenty-four-year-old Alberta Williams (1989); sixteen-year-old Ramona Wilson (1994); fifteen-year-old Roxanne Thiara (1994); fifteen-year-old Alisha Germaine (1994); and fourteen-year-old Aielah Saric-Auger (2006).
The following five women are acknowledged as missing by the RCMP: sixteen-year-old Shelley Bascu (1983); sixteen-year-old Delphine Nikal (1990); nineteen-year-old Lana Derrick (1995); twenty-five-year-old Nicole Hoar (2002); and twenty-two-year-old Tamara Chipman (2005).
Of those murdered, only two cases were solved as of 2018. In 2012, DNA evidence led police to believe that Bobby Jack Fowler, a rapist and serial killer in the United States and Canada, murdered Colleen MacMillen. However, Fowler died in prison in 2006 before being charged with her murder. Fowler was also suspected in the murders of Gale Weys and Pamela Darlington, but no conclusive evidence has been found. Sixty-seven-year-old Garry Taylor Handlen, a convicted violent sexual predator, was charged with the death of Monica Jack in 2014.
The RCMP believes that many individual perpetrators are responsible for the murders and disappearances of the unsolved cases of those identified by the RCMP between 1969 and 2006. This seems to also be true of the women who vanished after 2006. In 2014, teenage serial killer Cody Allen Legebokoff was convicted of killing three women and fifteen-year-old Loren Donn Leslie, who was murdered near the Highway of Tears in 2010. However, Legebokoff was incarcerated in 2011, the time when Highway of Tears victim Madeline “Maddy” Scott disappeared at the age of twenty.
New Efforts
In 2016, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau allocated more than $30 million to launch a new investigation into the murders and disappearances and prevent future crimes. According to Trudeau, two contributing factors to the crimes along the Highway of Tears are the lack of reliable public transportation and the rampant poverty in the indigenous communities. Those in the area cannot afford reliable transportation and hitchhike, even though they are aware of the risks. Trudeau vowed to improve the situation for the people near the highway and solve the cases of the missing and murdered women.
Despite Trudeau’s efforts, however, on CBC News in 2016, the RCMP admitted that it may never find the killers of the women in the fifteen unsolved cases from 1969 to 2006. It is possible that too much time has passed to make additional arrests. Witnesses to the crimes as well as the killers themselves may have passed away. The area in which the abductions occurred is isolated and key evidence may have been overlooked in the dense forests.
This may not be the case for more recent disappearances and murders along the Highway of Tears. Among them is Jessica Patrick, an eighteen-year-old mother and member of the Lake Babine First Nation. Patrick was last seen leaving a motel and may have been hitchhiking before her disappearance on September 3, 2018. Her body was found along a roadway not far from the Highway of Tears. While the crime was not immediately solved, many people within the community had come forward with information that may help solve the crime. Between 2019 and 2023, at least seven more women had gone missing or been murdered along the Highway of Tears.
Efforts continued to be made to improve safety along the highway. In 2023, a billboard campaign was installed along the road, honoring the missing and murdered Indigenous women and raising awareness about the dangers of travelling the highway alone. The Ministry of Transportation pledged $10.2 through 2024/25 to make improvements to the highway, including webcams, bus shelters, and highway pullouts. By December 2024, several new cell towers had been constructed along the highway to improve cell coverage and provide emergency call access for all travelers.
Bibliography
Brant, Jennifer. “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 8 July 2020, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-in-canada. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Crawford, Tiffany. "Another Woman Found Dead Near B.C.’s Highway of Tears: 8 Things to Know About the Notorious Stretch of Road." Vancouver Sun, 7 Nov. 2023, vancouversun.com/news/local-news/what-is-bc-highway-of-tears. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Culbert, Lori. “Victim’s Family Still Heartbroken After U.S. Sex Offender Linked to Highway of Tears Slaying.” Ottawa Citizens, 26 Sept. 2012, ottawacitizen.com/news/canada/rcmp-believe-there-is-more-than-one-highway-of-tears-killer. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Levin, Dan. “Dozens of Women Vanish on Canada’s Highway of Tears and Most Cases Are Unsolved.” The New York Times, 24 May 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/world/americas/canada-indigenous-women-highway-16.html. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Michalko, Ray. Obstruction of Justice: The Search for Truth on Canada’s Highway of Tears. Red Deer Press, 2016.
“Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada.”Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 21 Dec. 2014, www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/indigenous-women-bc-canada-en.pdf. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Smiley, Matthew, director. Highway of Tears. Human Rights Watch, 2014.
Soto, Don. “Highway of Tears.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 18 Jan. 2019, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/highway-of-tears. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.
Van Sant, Peter. “Highway of Tears.” CBS News, 28 May 2016, www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-explores-the-mysteries-and-murders-along-canadian-highway-of-tears/. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.