Tears and tragedy on Highway 16
Indigenous women and girls are missing and being murdered along Highway 16 in British Columbia. As Jessica McDiarmid writes in the introduction of “Highway of Tears,” “[It] is 725-kilometers of highway in British Columbia. And it is a microcosm of a national tragedy.” The subtitle of the book makes the case: “A True Story of Racism, Indifference, and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.”
Ms. McDiarmid is a Canadian journalist who grew up not far from the Highway of Tears. She was 10 years old when she saw a photo of Ramona Wilson, a young girl who had vanished from Smithers, British Columbia, the town where they both grew up. Over the years, Ms. McDiarmid would see more stories like Ramona’s in the news and she finally decided that more needed to be done. She connected with the many families connected to the tragedies of the Highway of Tears. She sought the support of indigenous governing bodies, as noted in the book’s forward, to tell the stories of Highway 16 in book form.
Ramona Wilson. Delphine
Nikal. Roxanne Thirara. Alishia Germaine. Lana Derrick. Alberta Williams. Tamara Chipman. Aielah Saric-Auger. All indigenous women and girls. All vanished along Highway 16 sometime between 1989-2006. Ms. McDiarmid spends approximately one chapter on each young woman’s story, including photos of them in childhood and adolescence and with their families. What the women have in common is that they are indigenous and female. While the media or police may want to categorize them monolithically, Ms. McDiarmid spends time giving individuality and uniqueness to each young woman talking about their dreams, their fears, their families and the special traits of their personalities.
About halfway through the chapters detailing the life and disappearance of each woman, Ms. McDiarmid also addresses a range of social issues that affects the lives of these young women. Canada’s history of colonization and its effect on indigenous populations has impacted not only the lives of young women on the Highway of Tears, it has also affected how the police, media and government have handled the disappearances. Ms.
McDiarmid makes it clear that the fact that the people vanishing on Highway 16 are female and indigenous is a direct result of a society that undervalues and discriminates against native populations.
She shows through statistical data, findings from detailed reports and, most importantly, the families’ stories that racism, sexism, and classism have impacted how the investigations were handled. One way she demonstrates this is through detailing the story of Nicole Hoar, a white woman who disappeared in British Columbia. The circumstances of the disappearance did not differ greatly from the women disappearing on Highway 16, yet the police and media response was so much greater. Even Nicole’s family, while grateful for the help, questioned the obvious discrepancies in the amount of help they received compared to the indigenous families also looking for their daughters.
However, despite the overwhelming hurdles faced by families and loved ones of women and girls missing and murdered on the Highway of Tears, the book also shows the tireless efforts of the family members to seek justice. In 2006 Florence
Naziel, whose cousin vanished on Highway 16, decided she needed to take action. She, along with another relative, Gladys Radek, and Matilda Wilson, the mother of Ramona Wilson who also vanished, decided to organize the first walk along the Highway of Tears.
However, the work didn’t stop with walking. Rena Zatorski, a newly elected band councillor, helped organize the funds for the first Highway of Tears symposium. The two-day symposium had the dual purpose of allowing families to tell their stories and to organize community action. While a special task force was created in response to the symposium, it often lacked the necessary funding. It also was not until 2015 that the government called a national inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women, almost two decades after Ramona Wilson went missing.
The book powerfully demonstrates that the indigenous women and girls of British Columbia are not powerless. However, the many social systems that should be protecting them and advocating for them have failed to do so. Ms. McDiarmid does the important work of re-centering the women and girls and their loved ones. She calls on all of us to reflect deeply on what the stories of indigenous women and girls will spur us to do.