HIGHWAY OF TEARS on the Air

Mention the phrase "serial killer" and you naturally get some attention.

I did a couple of media appearances in the last two days about "The Vanishing," my feature in the latest issue of Outside magazine that's about Canada's infamous Highway of Tears.

Yesterday, NPR's Ross Reynolds had me on his show, The Conversation. (Look for the Listen to the Show links to the right and pick one of the options to hear the archived segment). It's surprising that even here in Washington few people have heard about this tragic story that's been going on for a long time just north of us in British Columbia.

This morning I did an interview with CBC radio, on Daybreak, a show that's based in Prince George, BC, a city that's seen more than its share of Highway of Tears murders and mystery. The host seemed a little miffed that the story appeared in an outdoors magazine, especially in an issue where the cover lines aside from my story (which was given the "eyebrow" above the logo) were all about How to get in shape, and How to buy running shoes.

I understand their sensitivity about the issue (and, frankly, I'm not a fan of this issue's beefcake cover). This is, after all, their collective tragedy, with way too many of their Northern BC daughters and sisters and friends dead or disappeared along this wild stretch of the province. They're also very frustrated that not one of the Highway of Tears cases going back 43 years has been solved.

Outside, though, has a long tradition of covering stories like this: serious journalism about serious subjects like Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, Sebastian Junger's The Storm and others. Byliner has a list here of Outside's "greatest must-reads." Not a fluffy story about running shoes or ab workouts among them.

I'll post the CBC interview as soon as they get it up there.