Highway of Tears

By: Jessica McDiarmid

Narrated by: Emily Nixon

In the vein of the bestsellers I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and The Line Becomes a River, a penetrating, deeply moving account of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls of Highway 16, and a searing indictment of the society that failed them.

For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The corridor is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis.

Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate in which Indigenous women and girls are overpoliced yet underprotected. McDiarmid interviews those closest to the victims—mothers and fathers, siblings and friends—and provides an intimate firsthand account of their loss and unflagging fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada—now estimated to number up to four thousand—contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country.

Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for the victims and a testament to their families’ and communities’ unwavering determination to find it.

Critic reviews

"This thorough account of dozens of missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women on Highway 16 in northwestern Canada will leave listeners overcome with anger and sadness. Narrator Emily Nixon wears her heart on her sleeve, breaking away from a conversational tone to suffuse her voice with fury at systemic child abuse and loving warmth at the sweet personality quirks of the victims. Author Jessica McDiarmid's efforts to speak to everyone who carries the burden of the missing with them, often decades later, is perfectly matched by Nixon's emotional rendering of their words. The author reveals the deep roots of the crisis, drawing a clear line from twentieth-century governmental mistreatment of Indigenous people to recent failures in policy and investigations."

Must Read

Really good and shocking story. Hard to believe this is still happening in Canada.

Poignant and disturbing

Everyone should be disturbed listening to this tragedy. Perhaps better phrasing would be the repeatedly disregarded series of tragedies befalling young indigenous woman and girls. It's sad to say, but even more troubling is the appalling indifference of law enforcement and government agencies. Anyone who's had dealings with those institutions from a place of relative security, can only imagine the egregious apathy which faced those who are young, poor, indigenous, female, most who live in challenging economic circumstances. That alone should infuriate anyone listening. There is a lot of police doublespeak and government inertia. Then followed by promises, mostly broken, and those kept, ineptly implemented.

I may have liked it if author had delved more deeply into that very indifference. By portraying a young woman as "fiesty, fiery and didn't take crap from anyone", one can imagine those of a certain craven mindset viewing her (absolutely unfairly) as having been deserving whatever came her way. Distasteful as it is, I think most people can no doubt understand how that dismissiveness can be rationalized, if not condoned. It's imperative to confront and demolish those biases. But perhaps that's another book. Similarly, a few non-indigenous victims are detailed, specifically focusing on the discrepancy in police and media attention paid to them, as compared to the indigenous women and girls. But the author deftly presents this affront, without disrespecting the non-indigenous women and girls. Perhaps more could be made of that injustice of unequal attention, and not just on government, law enforcement and media, but on all of us, and all of our biases. Maybe that's another book, too. But these are mere quibbles. This book is necessary and important and heartbreaking. We all need to do more to help.

Stop the Violence!

Focusing on missing and murdered First Nation women in Canada, this could happen to anyone.

unbelievable sad injustice toward native women

heartbreaking, eye opener, I felt profound empathy and pain for what native american women go through. The Canadian and american white Male law enforcement and government should be ashamed.

Important to humanize the invisible

This was an eye-opener about how often and in what similar ways Indigenous girls and women are disappearing with little government or press attention wirh families searching endlessly.