Next Region: The Mackenzie Highway to Yellowknife
In the 1990's I made a series of summer expeditions to Canada, each trip venturing further north, first into northern British Columbia, then the Alaska Highway and the Yukon. It was a revelation to me to find that people actually lived fairly normal lives so far north, and the delightful discovery that there were decent roads up there.
In 1996 I ventured north past the Arctic Circle, on the Dempster Highway to Inuvik, a long lonely drive. My panorama shooting technique at the time was laborious and expensive so I didn't do many. But I think I shot the first VR panorama north of the Arctic Circle, full daylight at midnight. I am still looking for those negatives.
A few friends, veterans of field trips I had led at Berkeley Geography, jokingly asked me when I was going to take them to the Arctic? I called them on it, and in 1999 eight of us made the long drive in two SUV's – three weeks from Berkeley to Inuvik and back. We chartered a plane to go the extra distance to Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic coast (there is now a road). It was a memorable trip.
These panoramas were not included when I rebuilt my website, Virtual Guidebooks, in 2003, because the resolution was low and the color bad (mostly a scanning and processing problem). But I am happy to say that I have now included them in the current version of the site. Please be understanding about the image quality, I know it is not great. But these are historic photos, at least to me.
The Dempster HighwayNext Region: The Mackenzie Highway to Yellowknife