Thousands of people in northwest B.C. were unable to communicate digitally or do business on Monday after thieves attempted to steal copper cables crucial to Telus operations in the region.

The outage started at roughly 3 a.m. Monday and affected a huge swath of the province from Burns Lake, just west of Prince George, all the way to Terrace, Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii.

In an email, a spokesperson said those responsible were trying to steal the cables in the area of Sheraton, B.C., about 20 kilometres east of Burns Lake.