On April 24 at 4:36 in the morning, late night surfers and early morning chatters found their connections disrupted as the town was plunged back into the dark ages (aka 2010), when both the Internet and cellular service went down in the town.
Telus crews responded, searching for the source of the outage. “Our team immediately worked to identify the location of the damage,” says a spokesperson for the company. “They discovered that the cause of this fibre cut was fairly unique—beavers had chewed through our fibre cable at multiple points, causing extensive damage.”
This is perhaps the most Canadian of Internet outages. According to the spokesperson, the cable passed near a creek, and the beavers were able to get through about three feet of mud to find the cable, which was protected by a 12 cm conduit. “The beavers first chewed through the conduit before chewing through the cable in multiple locations,” says the spokesperson. “Our crews brought in additional equipment and technicians to help expose the cable and determine how far the damage continues up the line.”
Some marking tape from the conduit was pressed into service for the dam, the bright orange tape adding a festive point of contrast to the normal browns.
The repairs were hampered by the ground around the incident still being frozen.
Reaction from members of the community was swift but ineffectual, as people went to Facebook to complain about the Internet outage, only to discover that, right, Facebook is on the Internet too. With noting better to do, they decided to just watch something on Netflix.
Oh. Right. Darnit.
Freshmart, Home Hardware, Chevron and other local businesses were unable to process credit and debit payments, but most stayed open and were able to take cash.
Other businesses, like Ridge Cannabis soldiered through the outage on Saturday, but chose to close Sunday until the Internet came back on.
The District says that, while the event was seen as a major inconvenience for some, public safety services were not significantly impacted as a result of the outage. “Emergency services including police, fire, ambulance, as well as the Northern Health emergency room at the TR Health Clinic were all maintained throughout the event,” said a press release from the District. “Additionally, the local RCMP detachment was staffed around the clock during the event to provide additional support.”
With more reliable cellular coverage in the area, many people have abandoned landline telephones in favour of cellular options. “This unfortunately resulted in some residents being left unable to call 911 in the traditional manner if they required assistance as landline communications was the only option left intact.”
While frustrating, the event was not without its good moments. “Many with landlines allowed others to call loved ones or family members just to let them know they were ok,” says the District. “In at least one instance, a neighbour had to call 911 on behalf of a family as they had no access to a landline. These actions speak to the care and compassion that we as an entire community have for one another.”
Service was finally restored on Sunday, April 25 at about 3pm. All in all, Telus had to replace about 100 m of fibre optic cable.
People who had spent nearly 35 hours without Internet, cell phones or optic TV, came back in from nature, blinking at the sudden darkness of their homes, before taking another hit of high speed.
“About 900 Internet customers and 60 TV customers are also affected by this disruption,” they said. “We know how critical connectivity is to our customers, and we are very sorry for this interruption.”
But what about the beavers? Turns out they’re still there. While some locals have called for the elimination of the disruptive critters, that’s not something that can be done these days. Instead, they might look at moving the beaver, but that work will have to be done in conjunction with Conservation.
The story made quite a stir across the province and around the world, making the front page of the BBC (thanks, Michael), and Stephen Colbert’s monologue (thanks, Naomi).
Meanwhile, all five Xplorenet customers were feeling all kinds of cocky.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.