Google is scouring every corner of the Earth but there are still plenty of places to cover

Aug 23, 2012 08:11 GMT  ·  By

Google Street View has traveled the world, there are images from Antarctica, from many cities around the world, from Stonehenge or Mesoamerican archaeological sites. But there's still plenty of places to go to, remote locations that few people will ever get to.

Google is going to those places too, with the help of the local community, Google is now mapping the far north, remote locations in the Canadian tundra.

"Search for [cambridge bay] on Google Maps and you’ll fly to a tiny hamlet located deep in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut in Canada’s Arctic, surrounded by an intricate lacework of tundra, waterways and breaking ice," Google wrote.

"High above the Arctic circle, it’s a place reachable only by plane or boat. Zoom in on the map, 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," it said.

The fact that there are roads on Google Maps there at all is because of Map Maker, the tool that enables anyone to contribute to Google Maps.

Now though, Google is upping the ante and wants to get Street View imagery from the few streets in the hamlet. Actually, it wants to go beyond the hamlet, there's plenty to see around there.

"Now we’re pedaling the Street View trike around the gravel roads of the hamlet and using a tripod—the same used to capture business interiors—to collect imagery of these amazing places," Google said.

Not only that, it plans to teach the local members of the Map Maker community to use the Street View equipment so that they can go to other locations and get more imagery there. That's the same thing Google did in the Amazon, where it taught members of a local organization how to capture Street View images. Those images are already live on Google Maps. Images from the Canadian north are coming as well.