Haida Gwaii’s fibre-optic mainline had a very unlucky break on Friday the 13th.
Around noon on Sept. 13, a BC Hydro crew installing a pole south of Masset accidentally drilled an auger through the fibre-optic cable buried beside Highway 16.
It took until Monday afternoon to fix the break.
Local hospitals and some businesses stayed online thanks to satellite or cellular links.
But other businesses had to close, lose sales by going cash-only, or were otherwise disrupted. Offices and social-service agencies with internet-based phones couldn’t take calls.
“We apologize for the inconvenience to the community and we’re working with BC 1 Call to ensure something like this does not happen again,” said Dave Mosure, a BC Hydro spokesperson, in an email.
The BC Hydro crew did everything they normally do to avoid a line break while digging.
They contacted BC 1 Call, which in turn contacted GwaiiTel, the local non-profit that owns the fibre-optic mainline. Its path is roughly shown by orange markers, but at the dig site crews also used an electromagnetic locator and spray paint to show it more precisely.
Still, at 2.5 feet the auger drilled through the cable and tugged a section of the line.
“It was a big break, and it wasn’t just a small fix,” says Sam Hall, chair of GwaiiTel.
Technicians with CityWest and TELUS-owned Mascon, Haida Gwaii’s main internet providers, both worked on the fix.
Roughly 3 km of damaged line will need replacing soon. Hall said there will be a planned outage for those repairs, likely overnight.
GwaiiTel will bill BC Hydro for the cost to repair its line, but Hall said seeking compensation for affected businesses is beyond the society’s scope.
The fibre-optic cable between Old Massett and Skidegate was built to industry standard when it was installed in 2016 for $13 million, Hall said. So is the aerial section hung on utility poles south of Skidegate.
Still, Hall said the line gets damaged every year or two.
“Most of the time it’s not a complete break,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to work with something like that.”
Hall said the only way to be sure to avoid such outages would be to bury a second mainline, but that is likely too costly and the route may be impractical.
Astrid Castiglioni, general manager at the Haida Gwaii Co-op, said whatever happens, they hope Co-op can at least get a technician to respond next time.
Castiglioni, who uses they/them pronouns, said Co-op’s two Masset stores only went offline for an hour on the Friday before their satellite backups came on.
But for some reason, a similar backup at the Skidegate food store failed, they said, leaving the large supermarket offline until the break got fixed and Co-op reset its secure network on Tuesday, Sept. 17. No technician was available.
“It was pretty stressful for the staff and the customers alike,” they said.
Co-op staff had to rush back and forth to the credit union in Daajing Giids, handling $60,00o to $80,000 in cash a day when they usually need a fraction of that because people pay by card.
Some people without ready cash couldn’t get groceries.
With its order system down, staff at the Skidegate Co-op had to order meat, produce, and other things for the next ferry shipment without recent order histories or a full product catalog.
“That was our biggest worry, as we only get one order a week,” Castiglioni said.
“We are such a big part of food security for most people.”
While it won’t help the fibre-optic link, Hall said Haida Gwaii’s cellular data access will soon improve.
In a partnership with Coastal First Nations, Rogers Communications is funding new equipment in Old Massett and Prince Rupert so GwaiiTel can roughly double the capacity of its microwave radio link with the mainland from 1.3 to about 2.6 gigabits per second.
Rogers needs the capacity for the five new cellular towers it plans to install with Coastal First Nations to bring cell service to unserved areas on Highway 16.
That may be the last boost for the microwave radio link, said Sam Hall, since there is almost no unused radio spectrum left for the foreseeable future.