THE EARTH WALL W

50 Sussex is home to Google tech that allows you to explore the globe in new ways

Without fail, people use the Google Earth Wall to find their homes first. Alberta Lt.-gov. Lois Mitchell did when she visited the headquarters of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2018, keying in her address and zooming around her Edmonton residence. So did Geir O. Kløver, the world’s foremost expert on Roald Amundsen and director of the Fram Museum in Oslo, Norway, when he was in town for the 50 Sussex opening of his Amundsen exhibit Lessons from the Arctic. He traced the path from the polar exploration museum to his hilltop home, a short boat ride and walk away. After home, people look up the landmarks — geographical and constructed — that surround them or to which they feel most connected. They whiz around the map to their favourite lake in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park or Niagara Falls, Hollywood, Calif., Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower or Paris’s Arc de triomphe. For the vast majority of us, using Google Earth, or at least Google Maps, on our phones, tablets and computers is routine, and largely taken for granted. But the digital Earthexploration experience changes when it’s powered by a high-speed connection and happening on a three-metre-plus screen — the first Google Earth Wall installed in Canada. Where the wall really shines is in its ability to bring users (whether visitors to 50 Sussex exhibits, classes attending “Geoschool” events with their teachers, or people milling around at an event in the space) face to face with Canadian places and stories with which we should all be familiar. To that end, Can Geo Education collaborated with Google to create a series of “Voyager” stories. The results are gripping and honest explorations of historical events and social issues that combine a wealth of data, videos and other visuals to contextualize information and drive home the powerful connections between these issues and place.