Travelling west on Yellowhead Highway 16, Vancouver Sun reporter Neal Hall took in the loneliness of the road, especially desolate in 23-below December weather. The isolated landscape was beautiful as the sun climbed and dipped, blushing the tips of the mountains in pink hues. After driving for an hour or more and not glimpsing a house, he thought, “This is the perfect place, if somebody were hitchhiking, to pick them up, kill them and ditch them somewhere in the bush.”

Hall steered his rented SUV toward Prince Rupert, B.C., some 750 kilometres northwest of Vancouver. He wanted to see the spot where Tamara Chipman was last seen hitchhiking before disappearing on September 21, 2005. Now, months later, Hall’s editor had sent him to drive Highway 16, known as the Highway of Tears. The 3,500-kilometre highway begins its mainland stretch in Prince Rupert, curves north toward Terrace, dips down and heads east to Prince George before snaking through Alberta, Saskatchewan and ending in Macdonald, Manitoba. The RCMP had been actively investigating cases involving 18 teenage girls and young women who had been murdered or gone missing since 1969 along the 720-kilometre stretch linking Prince Rupert and Prince George.

Hall had plenty of experience covering such investigations, having worked the crime beat at the Sun since 1986, including reporting the trial of serial killer Clifford Olson. On this trip, he spent three days talking with Chipman’s family, volunteer searchers, a criminology professor at Northwest Community College in Terrace, locals and RCMP officer Fred Maile, who had helped solve the Olson case. Hall’s resulting 2,700-word feature focused on community concerns as well as the family’s agonizing search for something that belonged to their daughter—a piece of clothing, jewellery—that might lead to her discovery. He says he couldn’t have conveyed that detail if he had not driven the highway. “You can’t describe it unless you experience it first-hand. It’s invaluable to impart to your reader.”

But these types of assignments, once standard in print newsrooms, are now rare, victims in another way—of tight budgets, staff cutbacks and tiny travel funds. As a result, reporters and editors must find new ways of keeping this story alive, which now goes back 41 years, includes 13 recovered bodies and five disappearances, yet no murder charges. Print journalists have faced allegations of apathetic coverage and even racism—more than half the women were native—by victims’ families, aboriginal activists and native women’s organizations. They claim the media assign a lesser value to aboriginal women; scant coverage over the years is proof. Many reporters reject this, laying blame, instead, on resources and time constraints, which force them to develop new tactics to keep these cold cases hot.

The earliest case included in the RCMP’s investigation, Project E-Pana, is that of Gloria Moody, 27, whose body was found beaten and sexually assaulted off the highway in October 1969. By 1974, five more women and teenage girls thought to be hitchhiking were found dead on or near Highway 16. The media paid little attention, even after the town of Terrace held a vigil in 1998, dubbed “Highway of Tears.” The Province, the first major paper to pick up on the title, did not mention it in a news story until 2000. It took another five years for the RCMP to launch Project E-Pana, a homicide unit with a mandate to investigate commonalities between victims’ files and determine if a serial killer was responsible. Meanwhile, the list of cases swelled to nine names, then doubled to 18 in 2007, when the RCMP added similar unsolved cases that had occurred along highways 5 and 97, which intersect with Highway 16.

Given the slow and sporadic media coverage, many have argued that more tears have been spilt on this highway than ink devoted to the story. Journalists, claim critics, only react when a new body is discovered or a police search conducted. The latter took place last August and resulted in a fresh slew of coverage. Over the years, the highway and the women intrinsically linked to it fade in and out of public attention.

* * *

At about 8:50 a.m. on Friday, August 28, 2009, Sam Cooper, an intern at The Province, wasbusing to work when his assigning editor, Andy Ross, called on his cell. “Where are you? Are you close to the office?” Ross knew Cooper was capable, and thanks to reduced summer staffing, the rookie was about to be handed a story on the Highway of Tears. “You’re going to Prince George,” said Ross. Cooper, who had earned a one-year certificate in journalism at Langara College in 2005, was surprised and excited at the prospect. He had followed the coverage while reporting on aboriginal communities for the Vancouver-based newspaper North Shore Outlook.

At 11 a.m., Cooper arrived at the Vancouver airport with a laptop and BlackBerry from the office and the clothes on his back. He planned his strategy during the one-hour plane ride north. The news story had broken the previous evening, when the RCMP announced they had begun searching a property west of Prince George, in Isle Pierre, for the remains of Nicole Hoar. The tree planter from Red Deer, Alberta, had been missing for seven years. She was also the first victim in the string of disappearances that the RCMP had identified as Caucasian.

Around 2:30 p.m., Cooper reached the cordoned-off scene. The property, which extended back so far that some journalists had to use binoculars, was screened by trees, although some tents and evidence of digging were visible. A small scrum of journalists from TheGlobe and Mail, CTV and local papers had assembled. During the afternoon, Cooper covered the RCMP updates—the RCMP refused to say whether any human remains had been discovered. That evening, Cooper did some extra investigating. The previous owner of the property being searched had frequented the Bednesti Lake Resort, just outside Isle Pierre, so Cooper visited the bar. He also spoke with sex trade workers in downtown Prince George. “This is very much like the Downtown Eastside [of Vancouver],” says Cooper. “Some of the murdered women were tied to the sex trade, so my thought was, I have to go talk to the people who could be next.” His story, focusing on the RCMP search, which yielded a vehicle that underwent forensic testing but no recovery of a body, ran on the cover of the Sunday edition. Cooper continued to research the subject, but since his findings were considered excess colour, the follow-up material was never published. “The bottom line is, editors are interested in news hooks,” says Cooper. “Compared to the golden days of newspapers, that means less poking around and a bit more reactive reporting.”

Time and funds to cover such stories have become scant in this era of newsroom budget cutbacks, and the Highway of Tears doesn’t always survive in the daily news flow. The Province’s city editor, Shannon Miller,says the search for Hoar’s body pried open tight travel budgets as it was compelling enough to sell papers. Many reporters believed the police might find remains on the property and have another Pickton case on their hands. “There are very few stories that we would get someone on a plane for,” says Miller. “It has to be front-page guaranteed.” The possibility of a huge break in the high-profile case led to a three-day frenzy of coverage. But by Sunday, the police had wrapped up their search of the property, and local and national newspapers did too.

* * *

Anniversaries of disappearances provide another opportunity for editors to dedicate some inches to Highway of Tears coverage. Last October, the fourth anniversary of Tamara Chipman’s disappearance, Canwest News Service ran a series of articles in its publications addressing the tragedy of missing women in Canada. The Province assigned Suzanne Fournier to profile a victim from the Highway of Tears and she chose Chipman, a 21-year-old who left behind a two-year-old son. Chipman had been hitchhiking home from Prince Rupert to Terrace but never arrived. Fournier spoke with Chipman’s aunt, native rights activist Gladys Radek, who described Chipman as a beautiful, spunky woman: “Tamara had a black belt in ju-jitsu. She was a strong woman who adored her little boy, but she was also really loving and compassionate and supported me through the toughest time of my life.” Chipman had a wide smile and corkscrew curls.

Fournier, who has covered Highway 16 since 2004, thinks newspapers have a responsibility to keep the stories alive, though some editors are hard to convince. “In the past, there was disagreement as to how newsworthy the issue was,” says Fournier. “I’ve tried many times over the years to interest editors in stories of the huge numbers of missing women and often there wasn’t a lot of interest.” She suggests economic factors can trump moral obligation and even newsworthy updates. “I would say, the media in general, we don’t highlight the issues of the disenfranchised as much as maybe we should.”

That lack of coverage has sparked criticism of racial biases, an angle reporters have addressed in their stories. Activists and victims’ families have complained that both the police and media give more attention to cases when victims have lighter skin. Their criticism may be valid. The first time papers like The Globe and Mail, the Edmonton Journal and The Vancouver Sun really covered the Highway of Tears was in 2002, when Hoar, a 25-year-old Caucasian woman, vanished. The RCMP did not disclose the race of the victims in the earlier cases, but many media outlets assumed they were aboriginal. Hoar’s disappearance received lots of media attention and provoked a four-day land and air volunteer search. A $25,000 reward was offered for any tips leading to Hoar’s whereabouts, likely a contributing factor in the extensive coverage and investigation.

Kate Rexe, director of Sisters in Spirit, an initiative of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, points out the cruel irony that the fate of one white woman focused attention on Canada’s epidemic of lost native women. She voiced that frustration to reporter Randy Boswell, of Canwest News Service, for an article he wrote in the October 2009 series. The story’s headline stated that Sisters in Spirit “shines a light on hundreds of missing aboriginal women.” Boswell quoted Rexe as saying Hoar’s disappearance brought attention to the Highway of Tears, but gave “footnote status” to the 17 other women.

Radek, Tamara Chipman’s aunt, has often raised charges of racism in Highway of Tears coverage. After her niece went missing, Radek and fellow activist Bernie Williams created Walk4Justice in 2008. The yearly march raises awareness and honours Canada’s missing and murdered women and their families. Radek believes that if it weren’t for Hoar, the police would have invested less effort in investigating cases, and the media would have done little, if anything, to inform the public about the tragedies along the road.

But many reporters claim that limited involvement from victims’ families can deter in-depth reporting, especially on initial cases. Some families decline to speak to the media or are  uncomfortable reopening emotional wounds. Deborah Tetley, a reporter for the Calgary Herald, says if families want the cases of their loved ones covered in print, they need to speak up. “The family will say, ‘We don’t want to talk. We’re not interested,’ and that’s fair and that’s your choice, but then you can’t complain when there’s no story, or that your daughter or son didn’t get the recognition that he or she very likely deserved.”

Such cooperation is helpful, Tetley notes, as pitching a personal profile that will attract reader interest is a way to sell an editor on a feature. Tetley, who has worked at the Herald for 13 years, proposed a series tracing Hoar’s final known footsteps. A month after Hoar disappeared, Tetley spent six days covering the investigation and search. Her six-part Herald series, “Vanishing Point,” offered details about Hoar’s personality, the size-nine Teva sandals and oversized backpack she was last seen wearing, and emotional statements from the friends who saw Hoar before she disappeared. “The Celtic Reforestation camp where Hoar worked for the past four summers hasn’t been the same since she disappeared,” Tetley wrote in the July 23, 2002, article, capturing friend Katherine Foxcroft’s grief: “All we do all day, every day and all night, every night is think about Nicole….We will until we find out what happened.”

Still, Tetley thinks that it’s unrealistic for larger dailies to cover the Highway of Tears regularly unless there is a significant event. Robert Matas, of the Globe’s Vancouver bureau, agrees that without a new angle, stories become repetitive. “I think the issue is that the police haven’t found any answers. The media can’t just be saying the same thing over and over,” he says. Even so, Tetley thinks reporters should probably be doing more digging: “But for every story there is another layer, and we don’t have the time to get to the bottom of every story. We do our best.”

Prince George Free Press reporter Arthur Williams believes that working for a local paper allows him to get at those layers. Williams has been writing about the Highway of Tears since 2006, and has confronted hurdles of access in his coverage: families who prefer to remain private or have relocated to other communities, making contact nearly impossible. Williams feels that reporting for a community paper offers more occasions to secure intimate interviews with some of the families as well as a better understanding of the context. Prior to May 12, 2007, his few attempts to get in touch with the Hoar family were futile. Then he pitched a story to his editor about participating in a volunteer search for Hoar, where he finally met her parents.

Williams was the only journalist involved in the search that Saturday on Norman Lake Road where it meets Highway 16. The search teams scanned the dense forest floor for clothing, human remains or anything that looked suspicious. While Williams worked, he conversed with fellow volunteers about their motivations. Some participated out of sympathy for the family, while others had faced dangerous hitchhiking encounters in the past. Later in the day, Williams introduced himself to Jack and Barb Hoar. After the search had wrapped up, the Hoars made a statement to a group of reporters, who left shortly afterward. While the Hoars chatted with lingering volunteers, Williams hung around. He figured they would be more forthcoming in a one-on-one conversation. “I got a candid interview as opposed to a formal statement,” says Williams, who added that Barb Hoar approached him in a media-weary manner, but her mood changed when she realized Williams lived in Prince George. He quoted her in the May 16, 2007, article: “We’re incredibly appreciative to all the people who came out. How do you say thank you….We really hope that while we look for Nicole, we’ll help solve those other missing women’s cases as well.”

As police searches can unearth information still unknown to the public, reporters work to address the many unanswered questions posed by the community. The VancouverSun’s Lori Culbert and Hall did just that when they proposed a five-part investigative project to their editors last October. The series, also called “Vanishing Point,” was published in December and explained how the E-Pana investigation originated and operated. It also featured in-depth profiles of some of the earliest victims and those excluded from the investigation. Culbert developed the idea while covering the property search for Hoar’s body. She pondered how little is really known about many of the older Highway of Tears cases. First, she did extensive research. Culbert met with outreach workers from the Downtown Eastside, arranged numerous interviews in northern B.C. with family members and community activists, and spent three full weeks poring over articles dating back to the ’70s.

Culbert was no stranger to such microscopic investigating. From September to November 2001, she worked on a series for the Sun along with Lindsay Kines and Kim Bolan. Their 23 articles exposed understaffing and lack of resources in the police investigations of missing sex trade workers from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, whose remains were eventually found on Robert Pickton’s farm. Later, police expanded their resources and improved methods for dealing with missing person reports, and many reporters credit the Sun’s and subsequent coverage. The Highway of Tears series could have a similar impact on the RCMP’s E-Pana investigation, or at least generate tips and provide communities with more clarity on the cases.

Culbert landed in Prince Rupert on November 23 with photographer Ian Smith. They drove along the Highway of Tears for four days, stopping in towns like Smithers, Moricetown and Fraser Lake. They spoke with victims’ families and activists while Smith shot video content for the “Vanishing Point” webpage, which includes an interactive map, victim database and reader tributes. For part one of the series, Culbert and Hall conducted a Q & A session with RCMP Staff Sergeant Bruce Hulan, probing what prompted Project E-Pana to double the number of linked cases in 2007, why the nine women who were added predated the original list and what criteria the police used to add a person to the list (victims need to be female, found or disappeared near a major highway and involved in high-risk behaviour like prostitution or hitchhiking). Their inquiry also revealed that the media, for years, have falsely repeated the assumption that Hoar was the only white victim. In fact, of the 18, eight were Caucasian, a reality that Culbert says frustrated Connie Menton, the aunt of victim Leah Alishia Germaine. The body of the 15-year-old sex trade worker from Prince George was found near the city outskirts in 1994. She had been included in the RCMP’s original list of nine. Menton told Culbert, “I have no idea why the media keeps calling my niece native because she’s not.” Culbert guesses reporters failed to verify the race of victims when the RCMP first announced they added cases, which she attributes to the difficulty of finding families and a lack of time.

Part one of the online component of “Vanishing Point” addressed why certain cases had been excluded from Project E-Pana, such as that of Deena Braem from Quesnel, B.C., who went missing on September 26, 1999, one day before her 17th birthday. She had been seen hitchhiking, but Braem’s body was found farther than a mile from a major highway. Families of victims not included in the investigation often feel their daughters’ cases are being neglected. While the Braems were hesitant to talk, the details they shared resonated with readers. The stories needed that colour, Culbert says, though it was a challenge to explain to families that “we weren’t doing a quick, overnight news story, that we were interested in talking to them about their backgrounds.” Culbert believes the series provided an important public service. “If anything, it has just supplied some more information to the public than they had before and, most importantly, I think it has allowed these girls and women to have a voice about who they were. So the larger issue might be, are these victims that society has cared about? And I would argue they should be.” Though some families have not been open, it does not mean their daughters’ stories should be ignored.

Prince George Citizen reporter Frank Peebles also looked into victims who appear to belong in the investigation but didn’t make the list. He has been actively pursuing stories such as the RCMP’s discovery of Jill Stuchenko’s body in a gravel pit near Moore’s Meadow Park in Prince George on October 27, 2009. Stuchenko’s body was found too far from main roads, however, and is not considered part of the Highway of Tears investigation. A similar case was that of Helen Frost, who disappeared in 1970, but was neither hitchhiking nor a sex worker.

According to Peebles, Highway of Tears stories often neglect the toughest subject matter: context and analysis, including patterns of poverty, systematic racism, sexism, low education and lack of employment opportunities in northern communities. He’s been chipping away at these issues since he covered Leah Germaine’s death while he was a rookie Prince George Free Press reporter in 1994. Peebles thinks many journalists only briefly touch on underlying topics when activists and victims’ families raise them. The majority of coverage, he claims, fails to explain the broader picture. “It’s a big chew, and editors are really looking for things that are sweet and easy to swallow.”

Packing context into a news story is not easy, says Globe columnist and public health reporter André Picard. He addressed poverty as a health determinant of aboriginal communities in a September 3, 2009, column, “With 500 Aboriginal Women Missing, Action Is Long Overdue.” The anecdotal statistic was compiled by the Native Women’s Association of Canada and has been published frequently in the media. Picard believes economic factors in the Highway of Tears coverage should be mentioned, but daily news stories tend to provide snapshots, rather than deep backstory. “Some of these issues, especially the murder of aboriginal women, is a really slow-moving crisis,” says Picard. “That’s one of the things journalists cover the worst.”

* * *

On March 30 and 31, 2006,First Nations organizations, community groups, the RCMP and victims’ families gathered to address the growing crisis of missing women in northern B.C. at the Highway of Tears Symposium in Prince George. Dirk Meissner, a reporter for The Canadian Press in Victoria, was among the 500 people in the room. Despite the magnitude of the event, the only reporters present were affiliated with local papers and radio stations—and Meissner. He listened to family members share devastating experiences of losing a loved one. Afterward, he circulated among them, trying to talk to as many people as possible and gathering contacts.

At the end of the conference, he approached Audrey Auger, whose daughter Aielah’s body was found February 10, 2006, eight days after her family last saw her. Aielah, then 14, is the most recent victim on the RCMP list. Auger told Meissner that she preferred not to speak, but he assured her that he would show her any quotes. She relented, and in the article with the headline “A Collective Cry to Stop the Killings,” which ran in the Globe on April 1, 2006, Meissner quoted Auger: “Justice is what I want….What should come out of this is people’s cries be heard.”He also included concerns from a local NDP member of Parliament, Nathan Cullen, who said that racism is a deep issue in these cases: “If this were taking place in Ottawa Valley or Toronto, and these were not native women, would the reaction be the same? The reaction would obviously be different.”

Frank Peebles was also at the symposium. The day’s proceedings resulted in 33 recommendations, addressing victim prevention, community development, family support and emergency planning. Only one initiative has been adopted to date: the creation of the position of a Highway of Tears coordinator, Mavis Erickson. That lack of action motivated Peebles to continue his coverage. Between attention-grabbing announcements of new disappearances, searches and anniversaries, he dedicates time to Highway of Tears stories, following up with victims’ families, RCMP and activists. Workload prevents Peebles from devoting the time he would like to the cases. Still, he keeps working on the project, a few hours one day, an hour another, even squeezing in 20 minutes when he can. Spread over 16 years, he likes to think his coverage amounts to at least one major feature. Peebles feels that his job is to keep local fires burning, and he hopes it is making a difference. “Those procedures have not been addressed, and so it behooves me to keep the story alive. First, to honour those victims, and secondly, to try to get these recommendations implemented so there aren’t more victims.”