Interactive map lets viewers dive deep into Lancaster Sound

WWF-Canada’s new interactive map of Lancaster Sound allows users to see footage and hear stories of the region known in Inuktitut as Tallurutiup Tariunga. (IMAGE COURTESY OF WWF)

If you’re looking to learn a little more about one of Canada’s most northerly and most biologically diverse regions, the World Wildlife Fund-Canada has launched a new interactive map that lets you explore Lancaster Sound from the comfort of home.

The new tool allows users to see footage and hear stories of the region known in Inuktitut as Tallurutiup Tariunga, located at the eastern entrance of the Northwest Passage — from scenes of thousands of thick-billed murres on a clifftop, or a group of narwhals swimming through Fairweather Bay.

Users can scroll through the interactive map, available in English, Inuktitut and French, to view evidence of the increase in shipping through the region, also faced with the threat of oil and gas exploration.

The environmental group is hoping to connect Canadians with this remote region at a time when Lancaster Sound remains a candidate for protection as a National Marine Conservation Area.

The Trudeau government has set a goal of protecting 10 per cent of marine and coastal areas by 2020.

In the meantime, WWF-Canada and Ecojustice have launched a lawsuit to challenge the validity of Shell oil permits in the region.

“For more than 30 years, communities have been working to protect the region from industrial development, and WWF-Canada is asking the federal government to finally make this region a priority by designating it as a National Marine Conservation Area,” WWF-Canada said in a May 11 release, “and by updating its records to reflect the expiry of oil exploration leases in the region that should have expired in 1979.”

Lancaster Sound is located at the southern edge of what’s known as the Last Ice Area, the only Arctic region that’s expected to keep its summer sea ice until 2050, making it a vital habitat for wildlife that rely on ice.