We first visited this Santa three years ago but updated Street View imagery gives us a much better look at the bright red 12m tall Saint Nick who is in the process of making his list, and checking it twice. This blog post gives a fascinating glimpse at its origins in Seattle.

Heading to Oxnard, California, we find only the top-half of a Santa who has apparently got a bad headache, judging by the hand position and big frown on his face. Maybe all the cookies, milk and glasses of whisky were too much for him? As vigilant as ever, Google has blurred the faces of the accompanying nutcrackers to protect their identities.

This 6m tall Kris Kringle is actually quite a venerable specimen, having spent 50 years on the top of a candy store before being moved to his current location eight years ago. Read the full story in this blog post or this LA Times article, which includes a slideshow.

The state of Indiana seems to have a particularly fondness for Santa Claus. We first visited the town that bears his name back in 2008, but neglected to show the large statue that sits outside the town hall, surrounded by festive red benches.

Two separate can be spotted (one standing, one sitting) outside a hotel, while on the outskirts of town is a much older statue; in fact it is claimed to be the oldest Santa statue in the world.

It dates to 1935, shortly after the town’s residents realised they lived in a locale with a name that could be exploited for commercial gain. Originally thought to be 7 metres of solid granite, time and weathering have revealed that it is in fact made of concrete! Unfortunately it is too far from the road for early Street Views to give a good view.

Not quite so blurry is the 11m tall Father Christmas found an hour’s drive to the west in Haubstadt.

Roadside America reports that the surrounding derelict buildings have been demolished, leading to fears that this Santa may disappear before too long.

Many businesses adorn their premises with statues of Santa, though generally they’re not quite as disturbing as this one in Fresno, California.

Finally, just to prove that it’s not just the US that has giant Santa statues, in Lyngen, Norway, a large Julenissen² overlooks the harbour.

If you know of any other giant Santa statues please post them in the comments.

Merry Christmas from all of us at Google Sightseeing!

Locations: Alaska, California, Indiana, Norway /

View in Google Earth

At number ten the small town of Scary, West Virginia. Having the main street called Scary Road wasn’t frightening enough, so they named another street Big Scary Road!

At numbers nine and eight, we can just about make up the popular Halloween activity, by visiting Trickum Road and Treat Mountain Road, both in rural Georgia. Sadly they don’t intersect.

In the Netherlands we have a town named after a popular Halloween costume – Monster – which is number seven on our list. I’m not sure if it’s real graffiti, a real monster, or just an artifact of Google’s blurring efforts, but the town sign appears to have a ghoulish claw attached to the letter M!

Number six continues our monster theme. A touch of green face paint and a fake plastic bolt through the neck brings us to the tiny village of Frankenstein, Missouri.

Wikipedia claims that the town wasn’t actually named after Mary Shelley’s novel or its characters, but for a Gottfried Franken who donated land for the construction of a Church.

At number five we have one of the more popular decorations for Halloween parties – Spiderweb, South Carolina.

At numbers four and three we have a ghostly sound and a startled response – Boo, Sweden and Eek, Alaska.

Many children dress as pointy-hatted, wart-riddled old hags for Halloween, so (bending the rules slightly to include bodies of water as well as towns) at number two we have Witch Lake, Michigan.

We provide this handy graphic to help you understand how it got its name! Note the bonus Halloween content with Bat Lake just to the north-west!

No Halloween celebration would be complete without a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita, carved into a gruesome face and lit from within by a candle. So tied for number one we have a pair of communities called Pumkpintown – one in South Carolina, the other in Tennessee.

Happy Halloween from all of us at Google Sightseeing! If you know of other Halloween-named towns, please post them in the comments.

Locations: Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Netherlands, South Carolina, Sweden, Tennessee, West Virginia / Categories: Street Views, Weirdness

View in Google Earth

While the Aleutian arc continues on mainland Alaska, we’ll focus on a few of the more prominent volcanic islands and other points of note. The islands are generally clustered into five groups – Fox, Islands of Four Mountains, Andreanof, Rat and Near.

The Fox group is closest to the Alaskan mainland. It includes Unimak which happens to be the largest island in the chain, and has the tallest volcano – Mount Shishaldin – as well as several other volcanic features.

Mount Shishaldin reaches almost 2,900m and is a perfect example of the classic cone-shaped volcano. There appear to be some colour-matching issues with the satellite image, but does zooming in as far as possible really reveal glowing lava at the centre of the cone? This volcano last erupted in 1999, and it is still very seismically active.

The Western end of Unimak island has a pair of volcanoes – Pogromni and Westdahl. In the centre of the island is Fisher Caldera, a volcanic zone with numerous small cones and a vivid blue lake. At the eastern end of the island there is a small village called False Pass. It has less than a 100 residents, and is not visible on the low resolution image of the area.

The islands are named for the Aleuts – the indigenous population of the islands and surrounding region. While at one time they may have numbered around 25,000, outside influences have reduced the population to approximately 2,000. The Aleut language, with 3 dialects, is thought to be dying out.

Still within the Fox Islands group, Unalaska is another large island, with Makushin volcano dominating the northern coast. With frequent eruptions recorded in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and regular earthquakes detected, it’s likely only a matter of time before Makushin erupts again.

To the east of the volcano the island of Unalaska is connected by bridge to the small island of Amaknak and the town which shares the larger island’s name. Tere is also the port of Dutch Harbor which has become well-known for its crab-fishing fleet featured in the TV show Deadliest Catch.

The next group to the west is called Islands of Four Mountains, though there are actually eight islands in the cluster.

Many of them are simple volcanic cones with no other land area. The satellite coverage of the area is patchy, with some, like Mount Cleveland, being split between high- and low-resolution images. Thankfully the lovely shadow of the peak of the cone is on the high-res side!

Mount Cleveland is currently considered at risk of eruption, with potential hazard to air traffic across the region.

Continuing to the west we reach the Andreanof group of islands, with the satellite coverage getting even more random as we get further from the mainland.

There is a small area of high-resolution images (albeit split between winter and summer) covering the town of Adak, on the island of the same name. At one time this was a busy naval station with several thousand personnel on the island, but today just over 300 hardy souls live in this isolated municipality, which is the westernmost in the US.

Abandoned facilities can be spotted in several areas on the way to Mount Adagdak, an extinct volcano in the north of the island.

US Military facilities in the Aluetians became a necessity during World War II when Japanese forces invaded a pair of islands.

Kiska (in the Rat Island group) has a large volcano at its northern end, though it is obscured by cloud in the low-res image. An area of better imagery reveals remnants of battlements near the coast.

Attu (in the Near Island group) does not have any volcanic features, but like the rest of the Aluetians, seismic activity is a regular occurence. There is a military airport near the harbour that was built after the US regained control of the island.

I love the little bridge part way down the runway, with a stream flowing beneath! I wonder if it gets washed out by snowmelt each spring?

Learn more about the Aleutian Islands at Wikipedia and at the National Wilderness Preservation System which controls much of the area.

There is much more I could write about this fascinating region, so look for it to reappear next year during Volcano Week!

Locations: Alaska / Categories: Islands, Movie Locations, Natural Landmarks, Shadows, Volcanoes

View in Google Earth

Piilani Highway, Hawaii

Hawaii is of course well known for its volcanoes, and Google has done a great job covering the island chain’s roads and capturing some outstanding views. Here on the Piilani Highway on the island of Maui the road parallels the rugged coastline for miles and miles, all while gently riding the slopes of Maui’s ancient volcanoes. The road is ultimately very narrow, and it was closed for two years due to damage caused by the 2006 Hawaii earthquake.

D64, France

In the extreme southeastern corner of France, the D64 snakes through the Southern Alps and gives us some breathtaking views from high up in the mountains. The road is narrow, but that doesn’t stop cyclists and tourists from taking the journey as they are frequently recorded by Google’s cameras.

Going to the Sun Road, Montana

Winding its way up and down through Glacier National Park in Montana, Going to the Sun Road is a favourite among motorcycle riders in the United States. It’s been said that this road has the steepest, sharpest, and maybe even the most beautiful stretches of asphalt anywhere in America, and thanks to Street View, it’s easy to see why it’s so popular. Unfortunately for us, the camera car was using one of the original lower-resolution cameras when it made the journey.

Dalton Highway, Alaska

Alaska Route 11, also known as the Dalton Highway, stretches for 414 miles through some of the most deserted tundra in North America. The road itself was built as a supply road for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, but today it’s frequently travelled by truckers carrying supplies to and from remote northern Alaska. It’s been featured on numerous television shows like Ice Road Truckers and America’s Toughest Jobs due to its extremely dangerous position relative to the Arctic Ocean, and this road is also one of the most northern voyages made by the Google street view car anywhere in the world.¹

Hakusan Super Rindo Forest Road, Japan

Mt. Hakusan is one of three sacred Japanese mountains, and the Hakusan Super Rindo Forest Road is a sightseeing route through the adjacent alpine nature reserve of Hakusan National Park. What this means for us is we get some stunning scenery to check out as the Google car travelled almost the entire length of the road. There are vertical drop, stunning rock faces, and for most of the journey you can actually ride above the clouds!

Mount Cook Road, New Zealand

Leading motorists to the highest mountain in New Zealand, Mount Cook Road is a stunning reminder that New Zealand is home to some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. The route takes us along the western edge of Lake Pukaki, then up to the base of Mount Cook itself. The valley around the road was carved out by ancient glaciers, remnants of which can still be seen today.

Transfăgărăşan Highway, Romania

The Transfăgărăşan in Romania has got to be one of the most breathtaking roads anywhere. Packed with hundreds of turns and thousands of metres of elevations, it’s no wonder that the hosts of “Top Gear” named this road “The Greatest Driving Road in the World”. Thanks to this stretch of tarmac, the journey between Transylvania and Wallachia has become the stuff of legend. The landscape is surreal, and the road itself is intense. Well done Romania!

What’s your favourite Street View journey?

Locations: Alaska, France, Hawaii, Japan, Montana, New Zealand, Romania / Categories: Street Views

View in Google Earth

This 12m tall Santa can be found on St Nicholas Drive, outside Santa Claus House. He’s less visible from above, so we’re thankful that the Street View car visited (perhaps to drop off a Christmas wish list … freedom from privacy laws, cheap gas … ?)

While actually 2700km south of the real North Pole, the city takes full advantage of its name, with other streets bearing seasonal titles such as Snowman Lane and Kris Kringle Drive. The streetlights on Santa Claus Lane are made up like candy canes, and the emergency vehicles are painted in Christmas colours.

Thanks to Brandon.

Locations: Alaska / Categories: Street Views, Structures, Weirdness

View in Google Earth

Many people have voiced their concerns regarding the privacy implications of Google’s Street View service – but what if there were a way to “opt-out” of having your neighbourhood displayed online?

Yes, it appears that some enterprising resident of Fairbanks, Alaska, has worked out how to completely disable the Street View car’s onboard recording device! Even better, the process doesn’t involve any technical wizardry – all you need to do is stick a plastic bag over the top of the camera.

We can be quite sure this is a plastic bag too, because it actually says “plastic bag” on it. Unfortunately we’re not familiar enough with Alaskan plastic bags to tell you exactly what shop it’s from.

(Image rotated 180°)

The saboteurs must have been extremely quick on their feet of course, as the bag appeared without any warning while the car was travelling at speed along College Road.¹

The bag remains in place for quite a long way actually – right along College Road, onto the Old Steese Highway and halfway up Minnie Street, where it finally disappears at the junction with Clara Street.

Hopefully the discovery of this exciting technique will allow privacy advocates everywhere to finally thwart Google’s endlessly evil efforts to provide us all with really useful driving directions!

Update: It seems those sneaky Alaskans are disabling Street View cameras with anything they can get their hands on – as proven by these images captured by a vehicle in Anchorage. Thanks to Alaskan in the comments.

Update 2: Again in Anchorage, commenter Barry from Alaska caught the Street View camera wearing what looks like a tin-foil hat.

Thanks to Alden.

Locations: Alaska / Categories: Street Views

View in Google Earth

• Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Anchorage, Alaska
• Austin, Texas
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Fairbanks, Alaska
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Rockford, Illinois
• Richmond, Virginia
• Spokane, Washington
• St. Petersburg, Florida
• Tampa, Florida

Finally, Google have also added imagery for the few roads that run through Yosemite National Park, California, which enables us to see some pretty stunning scenery.

Here’s El Capitan, a 910 metre vertical rock formation that’s a popular challenge for rock climbers, and some spectacular Giant Redwoods living up to their name!

Read the full story at the Google Lat Long Blog, read more about El Capitan and Giant Redwoods at Wikipedia.

Locations: Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin / Categories: Natural Landmarks, Street Views

View in Google Earth

• Albany and Schenectady, NY
• Boise, ID
• Juneau, AK
• Kansas City, MO
• Manchester, NH
• Milwaukee, WI
• Research Triangle Park (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill), NC
• San Antonio, TX
• Salt Lake City, UT

And presumably just for today (because today is Valentine’s Day in case you’d forgotten), it seems the little Street View guy is standing on a little love heart.

Aww, puke.

Locations: Alaska, Idaho, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin / Categories: Site News, Street Views

View in Google Earth

it appears that someone’s been messing around on snowmobiles…

and here’s the culprits!

Thanks: XF

Locations: Alaska / Categories: Other Vehicles

View in Google Earth

Locations: Alaska / Categories: Large Type, Weirdness

View in Google Earth