Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services

Fort Simpson (July 20/01) - All she wanted was a fax machine. Stephanie Chagnon spotted one perfect for her at a government auction last weekend in Fort Simpson, near the bottom of a big pile of retired computers.

The catch? She had to buy the whole pile. The auctioneer said no when Chagnon begged him to sell the fax machine separately.

A couple minutes and five dollars later she was a successful bidder.

But Chagnon didn't want to lug home a pile of hardware.

The helicopter pilot and mechanic is only in Fort Simpson for the summer and has to fly out with everything she buys.

"Would anyone like a free computer and printer? Keyboards anybody?" she asks other auction-goers.

There weren't many takers.

"Maybe I'll buy one of those trucks and drive home," she mused. Surplus government pickup trucks -- they ran -- were going for around $700.

Les Wright got a similar deal - -- $5 for a pallet of computers.

"If they're good enough to run the government then I'm sure they can run some games for my kids," he reasoned.

"Maybe I'll start a computer training school."

Peter Shaw will donate the computers he bought to anyone who needs one. Some heads turned when he also bought two incubators that hospitals use for babies. They were just $7.50.

"I'm not having any kids," he explained.

Rather than conducting Dr. Jeckyll-style experiments, he'll take the sensible route of donating them to the Red Cross.

Every three or four years the territorial government examines computer requirements and sells those which "no longer meet the demands" of information-gobbling departments, says a spokesperson for the public works department.

"The new programs require more memory." The spokesperson, who did not want his name used, said the hard drives on surplus computer are first wiped clean, and some are donated to non-profit organizations.

He said most of the computers on the auction block last weekend are pre-Pentium 486 models.