by Arthur Milnes
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Nov 07/97) - Surfers the world over now have a new place to visit -- Fort Simpson.

Forget the drive or airline fares, it now only takes the click of the button to enjoy a cybervisit to the Deh Cho's largest community.

And the village of Fort Simpson is hoping the new site is just the tool needed to attract even more tourists and business in the years ahead.

"It's there mostly for tourism and for the marketing of the community," said the village's community economic development officer, Sean Whelly. "The idea is helping to get potential tourists and business to come here."

The Web site, which features recent news articles about Fort Simpson, tourism, history business and arts and culture information, is also interactive.

"People can e-mail (for information about Fort Simpson) or leave their comments," Whelly said. "This can be constantly updated and kept current very easily."

Besides all the convenience of having so much information available on-line, the site comes with a bonus for local taxpayers.

"What I have here," Whelly said while gesturing to the homepage, "is half a megabyte of information. We could put 10 megabytes here for the same price -- $15 a month."

Compare this with the costs of producing and printing tourism information that is often outdated by the time it is published.

The Web page has been under discussion in both village and Chamber of Commerce circles for close to a year.

Whelly, who recently travelled to Yellowknife to learn how to create a Web site, says the village is hoping area residents and business operators will provide feedback about the site.

"Just let us know and we can put advertisements and information on there," he said. "Hopefully, it will become something of a swap page.

The web address is: www.pacificocean.com/fortsimpson.

Happy surfing.