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Already the NORCs possess a sprinkle of sizable settlements from which to grow. Their biggest hubs, like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Seattle, Calgary, Edmonton, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Ottawa, Reykjavík, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, and Moscow are growing fast and attract many foreign immigrants today. Smaller destination cities include Anchorage, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Quebec City, Hamilton, Göteborg, Trondheim, Oulu, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, and others. Some truly northern towns that might grow in a New North include Fairbanks, Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Fort McMurray, Iqaluit, Tromsø, Rovaniemi, Murmansk, Surgut, Novy Urengoy, Noyabr’sk, Yakutsk, and others. The ports of Archangel’sk, Churchill, Dudinka, Hammerfest, Kirkenes, Nuuk, Prudhoe Bay, and others are poised to benefit from increased exploration and shipping activity in the Arctic Ocean.

Fueled by West Siberian hydrocarbons, Noyabr’sk and Novy Urengoy—brand-new cities that did not even exist until the early 1980s—are now up to a hundred thousand people apiece. Canada’s Fort McMurray is the fat tick of the Alberta Tar Sands, feeding on bitumen and water like Las Vegas feeds on gamblers. Its population boom, closing in on a hundred thousand within the decade, is probably just the beginning. Covering an area roughly the size of Bangladesh, this vast plain of tar-soaked dirt is thought to hold 175 billion barrels of oil, second only to Saudi Arabia and 50% more than Iraq. Despite devastating environmental damages, tar sands development is fast proceeding and by 2040 is projected to produce ten times more oil than Alaska’s North Slope does today.

Cities are key to the New North because the NORCs—like everywhere else—are rapidly urbanizing. Even in the remote Arctic and sub-Arctic, people are abandoning small villages or a life in the bush to flock to places like Fairbanks and Fort McMurray and Yakutsk. Tiny Barrow, Alaska—a metropolis by Arctic standards—is absorbing an influx of people from remote hamlets across the North Slope. Paired with reduced winter road access and ground disruptions from thawing permafrost, this urbanization trend suggests abandonment of large tracts of remote continental interiors. These lands will remain wild even as the oceans become busy. It is not unreasonable to suppose that one day people will visit them not to hunt or live on, but as global tourists wishing to see the last great wilderness parks left on Earth.

Ultimately, this question of future population expansion boils down to economic opportunity, demographics, and willing settlers. All of the NORC urban cores offer diverse global economies and attract large numbers of immigrants, offsetting their aging populations and falling domestic fertility rates. However, the Russian Federation faces sharply falling population, low aboriginal birth rates, and a generally hostile attitude toward foreigners. The Nordic countries are growing but slowly, have tiny aboriginal populations, and while generous to foreign immigrants are culturally resistant to the notion of throwing open their doors to millions more. Only Canada and the United States absorb large numbers of immigrants while also having substantial, fast-growing domestic aboriginal populations. Canadian policies favor admitting qualified workers above all else, benefiting her skilled labor force especially in southern cities. Her rising aboriginal population is fueling growth in remote northern towns as well. Canada continues to integrate economically and culturally with the United States, where nearly one hundred million more people will be living by 2050. These powerful trends are but three reasons why I have begun socking away Canada-region mutual funds in my retirement plan. After all, I need to be proactive: With a graying planet, the probability that a comfortable taxpayer-funded pension will be waiting for me is slim.

But outside the cities and towns it’s hard to attract new settlers, especially in the NORC countries’ Arctic hinterlands. With four million