Maria Canton
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Apr 24/00) - Typing the word Nunavut into an Internet search engine can yield over 250 hits on the first try.

A different search engine, which is a program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of documents where keywords are found, may reveal even more, and some of them might surprise you.

Take the "Buddhism in Nunavut" site, for example.

Many people in Iqaluit or Rankin Inlet, would probably be surprised to find out Buddhist groups exist in their community, unless they searched the Web.

But religion certainly isn't the only thing in Nunavut advertised on the Web.

Licence plates, art, jobs, adventure tourism, government and people all appear in one form of a virtual reality or another.

Nunavut is online thanks to three different service providers -- Nunanet in the Baffin, Arctic Data in the Kivalliq and Polarnet in the Kitikmeot -- and has well over 1,000 users.

Marcel Mason, who is the Web master and systems administrator for Iqaluit-based Nunanet Worldwide Communications, says the Internet has changed the way people communicate.

"The Internet has totally, 100 per cent, revolutionized communication here. It provides fast, economical and interactive communication with a person," said Mason, noting that Nunanet just hired two more staff members to help keep up with the volume of work.

"You can hit mass audiences with e-mail, obtain instantaneous feedback and the Internet is nowhere near its maximum of what can be done."

On Baffin Island -- with a population of 14,245 -- more than 900 Internet accounts exist with business people surfing the Web during the day and families filling the modem pool in the evenings.

And as more and more Northern communities get online, the interest in Canada's newest territory grows.

"For only $32.10 a month, a subscriber can advertise their company to the entire world with full-colour and sound. And although a lot of people use it as their exclusive method of marketing a product or a concept, a lot of people are still bogged down with using conventional print media," said Mason.

Sanikiluaq's Bob McLean, however, advertises his company, Soapstone Artists, exclusively on the Internet and gets up to 1,500 hits from all over the world each month, he says.

"From a marketing point of view, it's fantastic because I have access to a global market," said McLean.

"Probably 60 per cent of the hits to the site are from the U.S, another 30 per cent from Canada and the rest from Germany, England ... really anywhere overseas."

McLean has also been instrumental in starting the process to eliminate the long-distance call it takes to access the computer technology in his community.

His proposal is currently being reviewed by the Department of Sustainable Development and he says local access will be a boon to the community.

"People are always asking me about it, they can't wait. Our school isn't online yet and I'm hoping to get them going -- the kids will go wild," he said.

Internet service is currently available in eight of Nunavut's 26 communities.