The Town That the Internet (Almost) Forgot

"As Remote As You Are, I Know Repairs Are Difficult"

It's mid-afternoon when the new economy pays an unannounced visit to the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Indian Reservation. It arrives in the form of Mark Vanoni, territory manager at Grainger Industrial Supply, a large distributor of tools and other maintenance supplies. Vanoni, 36, sports spiky blond hair, black reflective sunglasses dangling from a cord around his neck, and a black shirt with "grainger.com" printed on the front. With roughly 2,000 accounts in northern rural Nevada, Vanoni strolls into the tribe's administrative offices expecting to make a routine sales call: introduce himself and drop off a business card, the new product catalog, and some promotional magnets. He doesn't anticipate finding Internet access. That changes everything. He sees an opportunity to pitch grainger.com.

This is a first for Cheryl Barney, 43, the reservation's housing coordinator. Although she surfs the Web daily, connecting to M-HIP on the computer in her office, she considers herself a novice. Nearly everything she knows so far about the Internet she learned on her own, through trial and error.

Vanoni holds up a Grainger catalog as thick as a Los Angeles phone book. "Our Web site has at least two and a half times more items than this catalog does," he says.

Neither Barney nor Maxine Smart, the reservation's interim financial director, says anything, so Vanoni keeps talking, outlining the range of supplies that they can search for online. The women look up "WD-40" and download a photo of a large blue-and-yellow can. They nod approvingly the instant they see the price: $13.72.

"One gallon for that price?" Smart says. She's impressed.

"And remember," Vanoni adds, "when you buy online, you get free freight."

He moves on to another topic: replacement parts. "As remote as you are, I know repairs are difficult."

"If we can't find the part, the tool goes in the dump," Barney says. "Or we drive to Winnemucca to find it."

A little while later, after an upbeat Vanoni leaves, Barney sits alone in her small office, fiddling with a red grainger.com magnet that he left behind. Although she's not a big talker, her frustration is evident. Purchasing online would save the tribe money, but she doubts that she'll be doing it anytime soon. Her hands are tied. She doesn't have the approval of the eight-member tribal council to spend funds or apply for resources online. She has requested authorization, but the issue remains in limbo, stalled by the tribe's byzantine politics.

If there's one area of the community that could benefit from the Internet, it's Fort McDermitt. Nestled alongside the winding Quinn River and framed by rolling mountains, the reservation features some of the richest scenery in the valley, along with some of the poorest families. There are more than 700 residents and only about 100 homes, many in need of repairs. While some people live comfortably with satellite dishes outside their well-kept, modest homes, others are barely getting by in aging trailers or squat, ramshackle houses. Residents raise livestock, work at the casinos, work at the gold mine near Winnemucca, or don't work at all.

The conditions sadden Barney. This is her home. She grew up here and married, moved away, then came back. "It's my life," she says. When she moved away, she missed her family, missed the open space, missed hearing Paiute -- "our language," she says. Other reservations are losing their culture, and she doesn't want that to happen to Fort McDermitt. She boasts that her 5-year-old nephew, Burnell, can count to 10 in Paiute, which even some adults can't do. Barney fears that Burnell's generation might not stay if they can't get better housing. A solution might be found on the Web, where she has unearthed various housing grants and loans, but so far nothing has changed.

Many residents can't afford a home computer or, if they can, they have no desire to buy one. In a place where some people say they can see the outline of an Indian warrior, wife, and child in the mountain ridge overlooking the reservation, most of the residents still can't see the value of the Internet. Barney is no digital evangelist. That's not her style. If people want to use the computer in her office, she'll gladly let them. If they ask how to look up news, weather, music, or information on social security, she'll help. Most days, about 10 regulars drop by -- adults in the morning, kids in the afternoon.

She doesn't understand the disinterest, and she doesn't worry about it. Her attitude is similar to the way that she feels about her 20-year-old son, Mickey, attending college someday. "I tell him that he will do it when he's ready," Barney says. When the rest of the tribe is ready to explore the Internet, she says, they will.