How long has the Highway of Tears been around for?

April 16, 2012 4:51 PM

How long has BC's Highway 16 been known as the Highway of Tears? I'm trying to establish the origins of the name.
posted by avocet to grab bag (5 answers total)

Page 9 of this report says that "With Nicole Hoar’s disappearance on June 21st, 2002, the term “Highway of Tears” became more widely known and widely used," presumably because the media picked up on the situation. It appears that it was a phrase used within the Aboriginal community for a while before that, though.
posted by jenny76 at 5:52 PM on April 16, 2012

I grew up in Prince George, and spent part of my adult life there. I remember it coming to prominence after the disappearance of Nicole Hoar, as jenny76 suggests, though I don't doubt it was coined before that. As I recall, the media picked up on the term from the aboriginal community.
posted by synecdoche at 5:54 PM on April 16, 2012

I've driven that highway, and young women (girls, really) are still hitchhiking.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:12 PM on April 16, 2012

Google News Archives currently has three hits in late 2002 as the earliest mention.
posted by XMLicious at 6:22 PM on April 16, 2012

I had heard it called the Highway of Tears in Moricetown well before Hoar disappeared. It just took a white woman disappearing for the term to get widespread. Couldn't put an exact year to the start of it, but working in Moricetown in '97, the term was commonplace.
posted by Sternmeyer at 6:25 PM on April 16, 2012 [3 favorites]