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"f you're already an avid follower of our Polar Bear, Beluga Sky (Northern Lights) or Underwater Beluga Whale Cams, then you've heard the name Churchill over and over again. But where exactly is it and what makes it such a hot spot for these amazing and threatened creatures? On the western side of Hudson Bay and just southwest of the Northwest Passage is a little coastal town in Canada. The Northwest Passage, of course, was long sought after as a short-cut trade route for countries near the Arctic Circle. It could potentially allow places like Russia to have a direct route to Canada, Greenland or New York City without going south. Famously impassable, the Northwest Passage has now become more accessible as climate change melts the Arctic ice. This could be good news for shippers but is bad news for bears. More on that later."

"ArkGIS is a customizable map developed by the World Wildlife Fund for the purpose of visualizing historical data about sea ice, marine life, and oil and gas exploration in the Arctic. To create custom visualizations of data layers on the ArkGIS map simply select a data category then select data layers to display. For example, I chose the "marine mammals" category then selected the "beluga whales" and "walrus" to view their distributions."