A virtual trip on the land
Michelel LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Dec 15/00) - A virtual tour through the territory sounds promising for those of us unable or unqualified to go traipsing through the bush.
The curious, from young students to world citizens, will be able to explore the Northern landscape, its people and its history from their own computer via the Internet.
This Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre undertaking, dubbed A Virtual Map of the NWT, had its beginnings in a four-summer project in the early '90s. The museum's sub-Arctic archaeologist, Tom Andrews, travelled a Dogrib land-use trail.
"He spent those four summers travelling up and down the Idaa Trail, documenting his finds. He thought it would be a neat idea to have an interactive CD on the trail," says Mark Heyck, the museum's project co-ordinator.
"The territorial archivist, Richard Valpy, expanded the idea into a virtual map of the territory. And about two years ago they started to get serious about it."
Heyck says the first segment, focusing on the Idaa Trail, will be published on the Internet in the spring, with a link off the museum's Web site (pwnhc.learnnet.nt.ca).
"It's designed with students in mind, through advice from the public school system, and the Northern Studies people from the department (Education, Culture and Employment)," explains Heyck.
The project has also involved three teachers from the Dogrib Education Council.
"And Tom Andrews is quite an expert on Dogrib culture."
The project team includes Heyck and Valpy, as well four other staff.
As the introductory presentation CD shows, the site will include video, photography, text, streaming audio, as well as Shock Wave for interactive games.
"We have quite a bit of video resources," say Heyck, pointing to the birch bark canoe project that involved Dogrib elders building the traditional canoe in 1996.
Traditional Dogrib music will enhance the site.
A virtual traveller will have the option to travel solo or to make use of elders as guides through the territory.
Heyck hopes that they will be able to publish one trail each year, with an Inuvialuit trail the second year and a journey down the Mackenzie River planned for the third year.
The museum's own Web site, already extensive and popular, seems to indicate that such an interactive Northern site will be a hit with people around the world.
"There is a growing interest in aboriginal cultures, this sort of thing feeds into that," says Heyck.
The team has been introducing the project with its CD presentation for about six months, and Heyck says the feedback they've been receiving has been constructive. For example, not everyone is a computer genius and well-versed in the technology.
"We have to remember that we're designing for a wide audience," he says.
Prior to publishing the first trail on the Internet, the project will be tested in a Dogrib community.
