Treadwell: Alaska's Lost Mine
A guided tour through an abandoned Klondike Gold Rush era mining town that uses augmented reality to show what life was like in the Alaskan wilderness 100+ years ago.
Juneau, Alaska
2023
Tourism & Themed Entertainment
Challenge
How do you create a unique and engaging tour of a forgotten city in Alaska. SE Alaska has a robust tourism industry, but the reality is that most visitors to the area aren't aware of it's diverse and challenging cultural and economic history. How do you share that story in an impactful way without becoming just another tour with people looking out the bus windows?
Solution
Juneau locals are quite familiar with the Treadwell ruins, but visitors are not. The ruins cover roughly 4 sq. miles with trails tying them together. The ruins themselves are imposing and mysterious, but since it is a historically preserved area, we had to design and develop a tour that left no footprint yet told the city's story in a dynamic and unexpected fashion.
Our content team headed to the state archives to research and write a narrative, and to determine what level of documentation from the original city still existed. We found extensive records that allowed us to craft 11 AR models that show life in Treadwell at full scale. From the original General Store to the 500' wharf and shipping docks, visitors can truly send them selves back in time to 1908.
