Almost 20 years - and a few large industrial projects - after it was recommended in the "Highway of Tears Symposium Recommendations Report"; BC's notorious "Highway of Tears" has 160 more kms of cell phone coverage.
Rogers Communications announced in a statement that they've turned on five new cellular towers along the 720-km stretch of highway that runs from Prince Rupert to Prince George. Nine out of eleven planned towers for the highway are now in operation.
“These are more than just cell towers, they are life lines for the north.” said Marie Teegee, activist for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Highway traffic has increased during the construction of the LNG Canada plant, along with other large energy and mine projects in the Northwest.
This will likely continue with the number of projects on the go, as In Q1 2024, the North Coast region had a total of 53 major projects with a combined value of $119.06 B in the works, with only 2 of 53 of those projects being completed. In Q1 2024, the Nechako region had a total of 18 major projects with a combined value of $6.86 B, this was unchanged from the previous quarter and a 1.0% decrease from Q1 2023.
The Highway of Tears Symposium Report was submitted on June 16, 2006, with recommendation #8 being the installation of emergency cell phone booths along the highway. In the explanation, limited cell coverage is identified and it is recommended that the government and nations look into asking a telecommunications company to expand the incomplete cell service along the highway.
The #1 recommendation of the 33 that were listed in the report was: "That a shuttle bus transportation system be established between each town and city located along the entire length of Highway 16, defined as the Highway of Tears."
Since the report came out in 2006, at least a dozen missing and murdered investigations have been linked to the Highway of Tears, including the still-unsolved murder of Jessica Patrick (Balczer) in 2008.
In addition, at least one of Cody Legebokoff's four convicted murders have been tied to the Highway of Tears. His offenses occurred between 2009 and 2010, and he is one of Canada's youngest convicted serial killers.
Another recent case linked to the Highway is that of Madison (Maddy) Scott, who went missing after a camping party in 2011. Her remains were finally found last year, less than 40 kilometers away from where she was reported missing.
The new towers are part of an ongoing rural wireless service expansion project with the province’s Connecting British Columbia program, administered by Northern Development Initiative Trust, and the federal Universal Broadband Fund. Rogers says the Highway 16 project is part of Rogers commitment to expand services to underserved rural, remote, and Indigenous communities in B.C. and across Canada.