Fort McMurray Tourism Exhibit
A portable tourism trailer housing three playable experiences — an interactive map, a VR video journey, and a physical exploration cube — designed to invite visitors into the Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo region before they arrive.
Role
Experience Designer
Client
Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo Tourism
Type
Tourism Installation
Format
3-Experience Portable Trailer
01 — Overview
Bringing a region to people before they visit it.
The Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo region has a story most people haven't heard — a landscape of boreal forests, Indigenous history, and outdoor experiences that rarely makes it into the popular tourism imagination. The challenge was to find a way to tell that story in spaces where potential visitors already were: travel expos, events, and public gatherings far from the region itself.
The solution was a portable trailer housing three distinct interactive experiences, each designed to engage a different kind of visitor and give them a genuine taste of the region — not a brochure, but something they could explore, play, and remember.
02 — The Three Experiences
One trailer. Three ways in.
Interactive Map
A large-format touchscreen map of the region — letting visitors explore destinations, activities, and stories at their own pace. Designed for curiosity-driven browsing rather than linear presentation.
VR Video Journey
An immersive 360° video experience placing visitors inside the landscape — on the water, in the boreal forest, at cultural sites. Designed to create an emotional connection to the place before the trip is ever planned.
Exploration Cube
A physical, tactile installation inviting hands-on engagement with the region's materials, textures, and stories. Designed for younger visitors and those less comfortable with screen-based interaction.
Three experiences, one goal: leave the trailer knowing Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo is somewhere worth going.
03 — Reflection
Designing for people who aren't looking for you.
Tourism exhibit design is a specific challenge — the audience hasn't opted in, attention is scarce, and the experience has to earn engagement rather than assume it. Designing three distinct entry points meant the trailer could work for a wide range of visitors without requiring any single experience to carry everything.
The physical cube in particular reinforced something I've carried through subsequent exhibit work: tangible, non-screen interactions often create the strongest memories in mixed-media environments. They're slower, more deliberate, and harder to ignore.