Mountain View, California — In its ever-expanding endeavor of captivating fascinating places, Google has embarked on a trip to build the most comprehensive map of Canada’s Arctic region to date, the company announced Wednesday night.
The tech titan’s Street View team has traveled in Canada, and marks the first time that it has set foot in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, to add in roads, rivers, and lakes in the beautiful Canadian Arctic hamlet of Cambridge Bay, which is only accessible by plane or boat, according to Google spokeswoman Deanna Yick.
Image Credit: (Mashable)
Far beyond the Arctic Circle–nearing the North Pole, situated in the Canadian Arctic, you probably have not heard of the tiny hamlet called Cambridge Bay, but now you can explore it visually through the latest Google Maps Street View project, which is capturing images there for preservation in Street View’s ever-expanding global gallery.
The Cambridge Bay lies deep in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut in Canada’s Arctic, which is serenely “surrounded by an intricate lacework of tundra, waterways and breaking ice,” Google Earth Outreach team member Karin Tuxen-Bettman wrote in a blog post today. “High above the Arctic circle, it is a place reachable only by plane or boat. Zoom in on the map [of the area on Google Maps], and this isolated village of 1,500 people appears as only a handful of streets, with names like Omingmak (“musk ox”) Street and Tigiganiak (“fox”) Road.”
Here is a screenshot of Cambridge Bay on Google Maps:
Cambridge Bay on Google Maps (Credit: Google Maps)
In fact, that isolation and amazement is what brought Google Street View to explore the area.
“Today, we have embarked on a mission to build the most comprehensive map of Canada’s Arctic region to date,” Tuxen-Bettman wrote in a blog post today. “We are empowering a community and putting Cambridge Bay on the proverbial map of tomorrow,” Tuxen-Bettman added.
This is our first trip to the Canadian territory of Nunavut, and together with residents of Cambridge Bay and government officials, employing Google Map Maker to add roads, rivers, lakes and other points of interest — including a daycare and nine-hole golf course — to the area’s map on Wednesday. The tool, which allows locals to add their knowledge directly to Google Maps, supports Inuktitut, one of Nunavut’s official languages.
“There are 4,000 years’ worth of stories waiting to be told in the Cambridge bay area,” wrote Tuxen-Bettman. “We are setting out on an ambitious mission to tell some of those stories and to build the most comprehensive map of the region to date.”
“This is a place with immense amount of local knowledge and a rich history. By placing these tools in the hands of our people, we will tell Nunavut’s story to the world,” resident Chris Kalluk says in statement.
Kalluk hosted a MapUp event in Cambridge Bay, where community members added their input to the Google map.
To get around on the hamlet’s gravel roads in order to gather more photos, a specially-equipped Google Street View trike is being pedaled around the so that volunteers can collect additional images, according to Google.
More so, local residents, like Kalluk, will be trained to use some of the Street View equipment, so they can document other communities in Nunavut.
The Street View Trike collecting imagery of Cambridge Bay. (Image Credits: Google)
Apart from other activities, Google Maps has been busy with lots of other Street View image additions recently.
In addition to the burgeoning Google Street View collection that also includes panoramic views of notable places around the globe, including Historic Italy, California National Parks, and highlights of must-see sites in the United States, Poland, Israel, Russia and the magnificent Swiss Alps, besides a “virtual tour” of NASA’s historic Kennedy Space Center that was unveiled earlier this month.