| Highway of Tears | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Matthew Smiley |
| Written by | Matthew Smiley |
| Produced by | Carly Pope |
| Narrated by | Nathan Fillion |
| Edited by | Brandon Lott |
| Music by | Bekon |
Release date |
|
Running time | 79 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
Highway of Tears is a 2015 Canadian documentary film directed by Matthew Smiley and narrated by Nathan Fillion. The film concerns the notorious Highway of Tears cases on British Columbia Highway 16 from 1969 to the present.
The Highway of Tears case consists of numerous unsolved murders and disappearances of women on Highway 16, with a majority of the victims being Aboriginal. [1]
The documentary explores the possible effects of systemic racism on the investigation, [2] beginning with the Canadian Indian residential school system and including the popularity of the song "Squaws Along the Yukon" by Hank Thompson in the 1950s. The film covers the Robert Pickton murders and examines the possible roles killers Bobby Jack Fowler and Cody Legebokoff played in the Highway of Tears. [3] It also references an earlier 2006 documentary Finding Dawn . The film ends with a note that then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not support an inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada. [4]
Matthew Smiley, an artist and filmmaker, conceived of the documentary after touring Prince George, which he felt had an ideal landscape to make a film. While he was there, his brother-in-law mentioned the case of Nicole Hoar, who went missing on Highway 16. [5] Smiley subsequently carried out interviews with community leaders and victims' families before taking his film crew to northern British Columbia to shoot the film. He credited Barb Ward-Burkitt, the executive director of the Prince George Native Friendship Centre, with supporting the project and being among the first to share her story. [5]
Smiley's purpose in screening the film was to advance efforts to calling a national inquiry. [6] Producer Carly Pope stated, "I believe the central message we're hoping to convey is that this is something occurring in our backyards that we can no longer remain ignorant to." [1] The film received funding from Carrier Sekani Family Services, with Mary Teegee, its director of child and family services, credited as an executive producer. [7]
Highway of Tears debuted at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in spring 2014, with the Toronto International Film Festival calling it a "hard-hitting documentary". [5] Neil Godbout, writing for the Times Colonist , calls it "a beautiful and tragic film, showcasing strength and perseverance, as well as grief and loss". [7]
The film won the Best Documentary award at the Malibu Film Festival in December 2014. [8] It received another award for best documentary from the Women in Film + Television Festival in Vancouver. [4]
Highway 16 is a highway in British Columbia, Canada. It is an important section of the Yellowhead Highway, a part of the Trans-Canada Highway that runs across Western Canada. The highway closely follows the path of the northern B.C. alignment of the Canadian National Railway (CN). The number "16" was first given to the highway in 1941, and originally, the route that the highway took was more to the north of today's highway, and it was not as long as it is now. Highway 16 originally ran from New Hazelton east to Aleza Lake. In 1947, Highway 16's western end was moved from New Hazelton to the coastal city of Prince Rupert, and in 1953, the highway was re-aligned to end at Prince George. In 1969, further alignment east into Yellowhead Pass was opened to traffic after being constructed up through 1968 and raised to all-weather standards in 1969. Highway 16's alignment on Haida Gwaii was commissioned in 1983 and is connected to the mainland segment via BC Ferries route #11.
CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.
The Highway of Tears is a 719-kilometre (447 mi) corridor of Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert in British Columbia, Canada, which has been the location of crimes against many Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) beginning in 1970. The phrase was coined during a vigil held in Terrace, British Columbia in 1998, by Florence Naziel, who was thinking of the victims' families crying over their loved ones. There are a disproportionately high number of Indigenous women on the list of victims.
Robert William Pickton, also known as the Pig Farmer Killer or the Butcher, is a Canadian serial killer, serial rapist, former pig farmer and possible cannibal who is suspected of being one of the most prolific serial killers in Canadian history. After dropping out of school, Pickton left a butcher's apprenticeship to begin working full-time at his family's pig farm. He is believed to have begun his murders in the early 1990s after inheriting the farm. Arrested in 2002, he was convicted in 2007 of the second-degree murders of six women and was also the subject of a lengthy investigation that yielded evidence of numerous other murders.
David Ridgen is an independent Canadian filmmaker born in Stratford, Ontario. He has worked for CBC Television, MSNBC, NPR, TVOntario and others. He is currently the writer, producer and host of CBC Radio’s true-crime podcast series, Someone Knows Something and The Next Call.
Finding Dawn is a 2006 documentary film by Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh looking into the fate of an estimated 500 Canadian Aboriginal women who have been murdered or have gone missing over the past 30 years.
The Saskatoon freezing deaths involved Indigenous Canadians in and immediately outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in the 1990s and early 2000s, and are suspected of being linked to actions by the members of the Saskatoon Police Service. The police officers would arrest Indigenous people, who were usually male, for alleged drunkenness and/or disorderly behaviour, sometimes without cause. The officers would then drive them to the outskirts of the city at night in the winter, and abandon them, leaving them stranded in sub-zero temperatures.
Jennifer Rice is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia to represent the electoral district of North Coast. She is a member of the BC New Democratic Party. Rice was first elected as a member of legislative assembly (MLA) in the 2013 provincial election and was re-elected in the 2017 election. In the 40th Parliament of British Columbia she acted as the official opposition's critic for northern and rural economic development and deputy critic for children and family development and introduced one private member bill, the Drinking Water Protection Amendment Act regarding regularizing testing of drinking water in schools.
On April 15, 2014, Matthew de Grood, son of Calgary Police Inspector Doug de Grood, stabbed five young adults to death at a house party in the Brentwood neighbourhood of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The party was several blocks away from the University of Calgary campus, and held to mark the end of its school year. It was Calgary's deadliest massacre.
Cody Alan Legebokoff is a Canadian serial killer convicted in 2014 by the British Columbia Supreme Court of murdering three women and one teenage girl, between 2009 and 2010, in or near the city of Prince George, British Columbia. He is one of Canada's youngest convicted serial killers, and his trial drew national attention. One of his victims, the 23-year-old Natasha Lynn Montgomery, has been included in the list of missing women and girls suspected as victims in the Highway of Tears murders.
Since 1996, there has been an unusually high number of cases involving young women disappearing along U.S. Route 29 (US 29) in Virginia, or an area known as the "Route 29 Corridor". Five young women disappeared in five years between 2009 and 2014, earning it a particularly notorious reputation. Of the nine murders/disappearances, only the cases of Morgan Dana Harrington (2009), Alexis Murphy (2013) and Hannah Graham (2014) were solved ending in convictions of their murderers, the other cases are still unsolved.
Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers is a Blackfoot and Sámi filmmaker, actor, and producer from the Kainai First Nation in Canada. She has won several accolades for her film work, including multiple Canadian Screen Awards.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is a human rights crisis of violence against Indigenous women in Canada and the United States, notably those in the FNIM and Native American communities, and a grassroots movement to raise awareness of MMIW through organizing marches; building databases of the missing; holding local community, city council, and tribal council meetings; and conducting domestic violence trainings and other informational sessions for police.
This River is a 2016 Canadian short documentary film directed by Katherena Vermette and Erika MacPherson. The film centres on Drag the Red, a volunteer group in Manitoba who search the Red River for the bodies of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
ProjectE-Pana is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) task force created in 2005 with the purpose of solving cases of missing and murdered persons along a section of Highway 16, all female, between Prince Rupert, British Columbia and Prince George, British Columbia, dubbed the Highway of Tears. Though it started with the scope of investigating victims of Highway 16, within a year of formation, it morphed to include victims along Highways 5, 24 and 97. It is no longer specifically dedicated to Highway of Tears cases.
Kate Green is a Canadian producer and director, who created the Canadian web series Narcoleap.
Diem Saunders was an Inuk writer and activist from Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, who advocated for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
