Rankin Inlet (Jun 28/06) - With a quick tug on an innocuous-looking cable in a backroom office, Rankin Inlet's first widespread, interactive link to the outside world signed off for good last week.

In a simple ceremony, officials at Sakku Internet Technologies unplugged the Kivalliq community's dial-up Internet connection, ending an era that many said transformed the hamlet.

"What developed was not something you would see walking through town," said Ron Dewar, who was with Sakku when Rankin went online a decade ago.

"But if you spoke with teachers and with students, the impact was amazing."

The plodding dial-up connection has since been replaced with high speed, but residents waxed nostalgic last week about the technology that "brought the outside world in," according to hamlet councillor Noah Tiktak.

"Most of us were not computer literate," he said. "Now (almost) everybody has a computer."

Thanks to local fundraising efforts and a grant from the federal government, residents cobbled together enough money for a 10-computer community access centre at Leo Ussak elementary school, Dewar said. Before that, kids could only post messages on a bulletin board, after hours, with the help of a government computer techie.

With the Internet centre, suddenly the gulf between Rankin Inlet and the outside world wasn't so big, Dewar said.

"For some children, the horizon was the end of their universe. This opened up a whole new world."

Sakku, the economic wing of the local Inuit association, spent about $500,000 on the dial-up connection. Once the system was up and running, demand for the Internet mushroomed.

"It had widespread appeal," Dewar said. Everyone from school kids to elders was interested in what lay ahead on the information superhighway.

Today Sakku - one of two companies that provide Internet service in Rankin - has about 700 customers and the web has become an invaluable tool for teachers.

There is one problem, though, said Tiktak, a father of two. Children are so enthraled with online chat programs - like Microsoft Messenger - they've stopped going outside.

"On the education front, the Internet has been put to good use," he said. "But the kids... they're always chatting."

While there were still about 100 customers on dial-up, the service was no longer economical, Sakku's Brock Junkin said.

Most, he expected, would switch over to the company's broadband signal, which is about 10 times faster and costs about the same each month.

And just as dial-up transformed the Kivalliq a decade ago, high-speed Internet access is drawing people closer together, he said.

"You have family members now who talk with their relatives using webcams. People can communicate across (the Kivalliq)."