Connected by a thread

By Tristin Hopper

Somewhere in Northern Alberta last week, a rogue backhoe operator ploughed through a fiber optic cable. It’s only a few inches wide – no bigger than the outlet pipes under your kitchen sink. Yet this unassuming cable is the Yukon’s sole ground-based connection to the web. Once cut, Northwestel’s network reverts to a backup grid of 1990s-era microwave towers. Cell phone networks crash, the internet grinds to a snail’s pace and long distance calls become a crap-shoot.