If you look at the road system in Canada, it's the same pattern, basically. There's a few dirt "highways" that stretch into the northwest, and absolutely nothing connecting the northeast. All the agriculture and so all the sizeable cities are in the south.

Actually, Russia has a lot more going on up there. As you can see the Russian homeland stretches pretty continuously up, and even in the colonial areas further east, they have mid-sized arctic city Norilsk (that disconnected bit of red). The best we can do is Yellowknife at 10,000.