Juno Park and its bunkers, remnants of the Atlantic Wall, as if you were there. It was here, on the beach at Courseulles-sur-Mer in Calvados, renamed Juno Beach by the Allies, that thousands of Canadian soldiers landed on June 6, 1944. While many Canadians visit the site each year, many on the other side of the Atlantic will never make the trip. To enable them to discover this page in the history of their country, the Juno Beach centre, in association with a company from Caen, has developed an innovative guided tour, with live commentary and filmed with a 360° camera.
How it works ?
These new kinds of tours are led by eight Canadian guides from the Juno Beach Centre. Guides who make the same visit as usual, but alone, accompanied by a small trolley equipped with a 360° camera and an internet connection. In front of their screen, visitors discover the site and its history as if they were there. They can even ask the live guide questions. “It’s another approach, but as in our public visits, we will really favor this interaction with visitors. Thanks to this tool, we also provide complementary images. We don’t feel too alone with the camera, and the tablet allows us to have a direct line with our visitors.“, explains Catherine Quintal, reception and mediation manager of the center.
This device, which required a year of development, was imagined by the Caen-based company Twelve Solutions, specialized in digital cultural projects, already at the origin of D-Day App, a free application for visiting and discovering the Normandy landing beaches. “We think there is a future in this because it is really a human visit, the guide controls the entire visit and you can interact with him, without it being through a webcam“, explains the co-founder of the company Yuri Perchey.
Remote tours that aren’t just for Canadians. THE Juno Beach Center also hopes, thanks to this new possibility, to introduce people with reduced mobility to the place and its history. To take into account the time difference across the Atlantic, visits take place at 4 p.m. (French time), on Wednesdays (in French) and Thursdays (in English). Mandatory reservation.
