Native Internet site planned

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In all the vast space and millions of computer files accessible through the Internet, there is not one site that collects and stores data about Native Canadians.

"There's really no representation here in Canada yet," says Dickson Christie, director of marketing and promotions for Alberta Supernet, a service which connects computer users with Internet.

Christie wants to change that.

His company is talking with representatives from the department of Indian Affairs about setting up a site on the Internet where information and research about culture, history and current issues would be available.

The site would be controlled by a governing body, for instance DIAND, which would compile the information and pass it on to Alberta Supernet.

It could be categorized by province or by tribe; no decisions have been made yet.

There are at least 20 different sites across north America and Australia that contain information about Indigenous American and Australian peoples, but no Canadian cites.

The cost is not high, Christie says. It costs about $15 a month to have access to Internet, which is used by between 30 and 50 million people around the world. There are some 4,500 news groups that deal with subjects ranging from Beavis and Butthead to zoology, he adds.

It's also the fastest way to communicate. Electronic mail takes several seconds to transmit, where a fax can take several minutes and the regular mail system, or "snail mail" as Dickson calls it, can take weeks.

"It's fast becoming THE means of communication. I have clients that do business 100 per cent on the Internet."