Google Street View seeks to give people a rare look at Nunavut

While most of us can only wonder what a visit to Canada's North would be like, the latest project by the Google Street View team will help cease our wondering.

The team responsible for mapping out the world at street level so users can virtually explore a local has made the trip to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, where they're exploring the landscape and cultural sites on a tricycle.

It might sound a little strange, but here you can watch their curious apparatus in action:

Up until now, Google Street View was available for all Canadian provinces and territories, with the exception of Nunavut. Once the team processes the data they collect on this trip over the next few months, at least one location in Nunavut will now make its way onto Google's radar.

The team is being hosted by locals like Chris Kalluk, who met with the Google team last September at the Google Earth Outreach workshop in Vancouver, according to Google's official blog. Kalluk is helping to host community Map Up events, which encourages locals to add roads, rivers and landmarks through Google's Map Maker tool. Many of the locations were labeled with both their English and Inuktitut names.

Those of us who have seen the Google Street View cars might not be as familiar with the equipment being used to map Cambrige Bay, but it turns out the car is just one of four vehicles that Google uses to map out an area.

The Street View Trike is used in areas that aren't accessible by car, or areas that would be damaged by the car's heft. Since Cambridge Bay is only accessible by plane or boat, bringing along the Street View Trike was the natural choice. The Google Street View team also has used a trolley and a snowmobile for mapping the inside of buildings and snow-covered areas respectively. If you check out Whistler, B.C. in Street View, you'll see the first time the Street View Snowmobile was put to work.

(Photo courtesy of Google Plus)