An internet outage affecting multiple Haida Gwaii communities began early Saturday afternoon after a fibre-optic line was cut during roadwork along Highway 16.
According to CityWest, the outage started around 1:30 p.m. on March 21 due to a third-party fibre cut near Tlell. Mascon reported service disruptions beginning shortly after, affecting Skidegate, Daajing Giids and Tlell.
A post from GwaiiTel said the line was severed by road crews north of Skidegate. In the same update, GwaiiTel said, “We have buried fibre along the highway connecting each community. Please call BC1 before you dig.” The organization said repair crews were travelling to Haida Gwaii and anticipated service could be restored by Tuesday afternoon.
By press time, it was not immediately clear whether repairs had been completed.
GwaiiTel owns and maintains the islands’ backbone network, including roughly 100 kilometres of buried fibre running alongside Highway 16. That infrastructure carries internet traffic for both Mascon and CityWest, meaning a single break can disrupt service across multiple providers and communities.
This is not the first time the backbone has been damaged during construction work.
In September 2024, a BC Hydro crew accidentally drilled through the same fibre line south of Masset while installing a utility pole. According to GwaiiTel, BC 1 Call had been contacted and the cable was marked before the work began, but the line was still struck, causing a multi-day outage.
At the time, GwaiiTel chair Sam Hall said damage to the fibre line occurs “every year or two.”
The network itself was built in 2016 with federal and local funding and was designed as a buried roadside system to reduce exposure to weather and above-ground hazards.
That design has improved reliability in many cases, but it also means much of the system follows a single corridor along Highway 16.
When a break occurs along that route, there are limited alternatives to reroute traffic on-island.
Previous outages have disrupted businesses, forced some to operate on cash only, and affected services that rely on internet-based communications. Some organizations maintain satellite or cellular backups, but coverage and reliability vary across the islands.
While safeguards such as BC 1 Call are intended to prevent accidental damage, past incidents suggest those measures do not eliminate the risk.
It is not yet known whether a locate request was made prior to the roadwork that caused Saturday’s break.
The latest outage again raises questions about the resilience of Haida Gwaii’s internet infrastructure, particularly along Highway 16, where a single cut can interrupt service across multiple communities.
