The Hoodoos, Horsethief Canyon, and other attractions around Drumheller will be showcased alongside globally famous sites like Machu Picchu and Mt. Fuji as Travel Alberta has partnered with Google Trekker to allow the world virtual access to our backyard.
Google Trekker is a 40 lbs backpack equipped with 15 cameras that capture 360-degree images every two to three seconds as it’s carried by foot across landscapes throughout the world. The Trekker travelled through Drumheller over the last month and will continue to sites around Alberta over September, including the petroglyphs in Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Crowsnest Pass and Frank Slide, landscapes around Grande Prairie, and forests and lakes around Slave Lake.
“This is a great opportunity for us to help showcase some of the great travel experiences travellers may not be aware of,” said Travel Alberta’s VP of marketing Phil Klassen. “We want to encourage Albertans and our visitors globally to explore new places and try new experiences.”
“We’ve been working with Google for a number of years as travellers use more and more digital channels to plan their travel. It gave us an opportunity to partner with Google at no cost to capture some great footage of some breathtaking landscapes people may not be familiar with.”
Many trails and pathways in Alberta’s National Parks have already been trekked through. Further, Banff and Lake Louise Tourism has been working with Google in documenting locations using the Trekker around the Banff and Lake Louise area this summer.
Once the images have been collected, Travel Alberta will return the Trekker and the image files to Google where the content is processed and uploaded to Google Maps. Klassen said they anticipate footage to be online for visitors by spring 2017.
