It goes without saying that the people who live year round in the Arctic are some of the hardiest people on the planet, enduring long, dark winters with little more than the necessities; there are very few who fit into this exclusive category.
A mere, eight countries exist within the Arctic: the United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, however, the uninhabited Islet of Kolbeinsey with less than 1,000 square feet of land and approximately the northern half of the Island of Grímsey are the only portions of Iceland that are within the Arctic Circle. The only residents of Grímsey are technically south of the Arctic Circle, in other words, no Icelanders live within the accepted boundaries of the Arctic Circle.
The northernmost permanent settlement in the world is Longyearbyen, Norway, which is 475 miles north of the northernmost point of Alaska! The settlement has 2,300 residents that are possibly the hardiest people in the world when it comes to harsh, wintery conditions in a remote location, though I will be focusing on the Arctic Circle in North America for the remainder of this post, which consists of three countries: the United States, Canada, and Greenland.
The North Americans of the North
When people think about living far north in North America, they commonly think about Canada; even I thought this way, but I discovered some truly astonishing facts.
Canada has a region of land that stretches down into the Great Lakes, even pressing into Ohio and reaching below small amounts of that state; there are 27 states that have portions of land further north than the southernmost point of Canada; that is more than half of the states! Astoundingly, if you happen to live in Dorris, California, you live further north than about 235 Canadians; it seems bizarre that California could be north of Canada.
Of these 27 states, there are 13 states that are completely north of the southernmost point of Canada: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska; this means that more Americans live north of the southernmost point of Canada than there are Canadians. Michigan is barely in this category as its southernmost point is only 1.1 miles north of Canada’s.
Maybe it is not the location of a nation’s land that counts, but where their population resides. Are more Canadians north of the 49th Parallel than Americans? Yes, there are 12,333,000 Canadians (32% of Canadians) above the 49th Parallel, and 733,000 Americans (0.2% of Americans) above the parallel, though this is partially because the United States’ only land above the 49th Parallel is Alaska, besides the Northwest Angle in Minnesota; Canada owns virtually everything between the 49th and 55th parallels in North America.
This means that the United States has 0.2% of its population living north of the 49th Parallel (18% of US land), and 99.8% living in the other 49 states (82% of US land); Canada has 32% of its population living above the 49th Parallel (estimated 88.5% of Canadian land), and 68% living south of the parallel (estimated 11.5% of Canadian land). I was unable to find a source that told what percentage of Canada’s land is south of the 49th Parallel, so I made a rough estimation.
If we wish to look at the Arctic alone, we would not find many people, since not many live within this region in North America. In my calculation, I found that 32,000 Canadians and 20,000 Americans live in the Arctic.
I could not find any estimates for how many Greenlanders live in the Arctic, but I realized that all 57,000 Greenlanders live further north than 99.7% of Canadians. In my opinion, if we were to give the credit to one nation in North America for having the most tough people when it comes to wintery conditions, it would be Greenland.
The writing of this post has taught me that I underestimated the number of Americans in the Arctic, the amount of Canadian land that is unsuitable for life, and the hardiness of Greenlanders.
This icy, yet lighthearted, topic is not intended to put down anyone, especially not our Canadian neighbors to our north and south.
Have you ever been to the Arctic?
Onward American 