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By Root 1098 0

one another and from potential international trading partners by great distances. They are precariously linked by absurdly stretched infrastructure, if even linked at all. Their subsidization so saddled the Soviet economy that some researchers believe they helped bring about the collapse of the USSR in 1991.402 Afterward, of course, the subsidies evaporated and in the 1990s the giant Siberian cities depopulated faster than Detroit in a bad layoff year. In eastern Siberia the population fell by half—from about twelve million to six—a free fall that is only now stabilizing as the region’s population downsizes to some semblance of a free-market equilibrium economy. But even after this depopulation, the Russian Federation is unique among the NORCs in having so many big cities in its coldest, most remote territories.

Perhaps one day, having far-flung urban cores and disseminated infrastructure throughout the New North will pay off. But for now, Russia continues to pay the price for the inefficient layout and bitterly cold temperatures of her Siberian cities. The economic geographer Tatiana Mikhailova estimates that remote distance and cold temperatures cost the country at least 1.2% GDP annually in extra energy and construction costs alone.403 That is nearly half the GDP contraction suffered by the United States during the recession of 2008-09 (2.5%).

An extreme example of this kind of geographic inefficiency is Yakutsk, the capital of the Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia. Despite having a population of over two hundred thousand—more than ten times larger than Canada’s Yellowknife—Yakutsk is essentially a fly-in city. Getting there otherwise requires either a thousand-mile-long boat ride down the Lena River during its short shipping season, or braving the “Road of Bones,” a twelve-hundred-mile-long rutted track from Magadan, built by Gulag prisoners, that is only really drivable in winter. The road even ends on the wrong side of the bridgeless Lena River from Yakutsk. Finishing the trip thus requires driving over the river ice in winter or a ferryboat in summer. During the Lena’s violent, ice-jammed spring flood, Sakha Republic’s capital city is completely cut off from the world except by airplane.

In contrast to Russia, the vast share of Canada’s population and infrastructure closely hugs its border along the warmest and most accessible parts of the country. Its big population centers are close to U.S. population centers. This proximity, together with NAFTA and a historically friendly border, encourages massive volumes of trade and traffic between the two countries. Many Americans are surprised to learn that the United States’ largest trading partner is not China but Canada. However, there is a penalty (or benefit, depending on one’s point of view) that Canadians pay for clustering along the American border. With its small population and economy concentrated in the south, the vast share of their country is inaccessible except by airplane or temporary winter road servicing a sprinkle of little villages. The same is true, on a smaller scale, for Alaska. To this day, much of Canada and Alaska remain stunning wilderness.

If Canada and Alaska are wild, and Russia colonized, then the Nordic countries are downright civilized. On my first visit to Iceland I was amazed to learn that I could lease a sleek sedan from my choice of several multinational rental-car companies, then drive it comfortably at high speed around the entire island. My accustomed experience with driving through thinly populated Arctic countries was crawling with clenched teeth over a potholed gravel road in a battered 4WD truck, either hired from a local driver or borrowed from the government, praying that the one decrepit gas station two hundred miles away would actually have some gas and a working telephone. But Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland all have beautiful paved thoroughfares extending to their remotest extremities. They are dotted with gleaming service centers, stores, and restaurants. Cell phones work everywhere. Reaching the Arctic Circle in Alaska,