Google has set out to take users of its free online mapping service on an Arctic adventure with help from an Inuit community in the Canadian tundra.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined the effort as the internet titan’s Street View team arrived in the hamlet of Cambridge Bay in the Northwest Passage for one of its most remote projects to date.

“The goal of this project is to share with a global online audience the beauty of Canada’s Arctic and the culture of the Inuit people who live there,” said a Google team member.

Google spent 11 months planning the mapping endeavour with Nunavut political leaders and elders in Cambridge Bay in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

“People are always asking how we live; how we survive,” Cambridge Bay elder Anna Nahogaloak said.

“They’re always asking about everything,” she continued. “This will help them understand and learn more about Nunavut.”

Nunavut is Canada’s northernmost territory and was officially separated from the Northwest Territory in 1999.

Ms Nahogaloak recalled being 10 years old when her family travelled by dog sled from Brownside River in 1958 to Cambridge Bay, where they built a cabin and became part of the small community that has grown to about 1,600 residents.

She recounted how many of the dogs starved along the way because game was scarce.

The Street View project began with a “map-up” at which a dozen residents worked on Chromebook laptops to enhance a Cambridge