Canada, and especially "the North", has many towns, only accessible by winter; ice roads. After freeze up, they are plowed, and maintained. After break up in the spring, those towns are only re supplied with groceries, medical supplies, traveling doctors, etc. By airplane. There is a lot of pressure to stock up in the winter. The region is covered by muskeg ( swamp), rivers and lakes. Winter is the only time many places are accessible. This also is true for mineral, oil and gas exploration. Winter is a blessing. Global warming, will give rise to many interesting questions about accessibility. See Norman Wells, Tuktoyaktuk, and Aklavik. New highways, old ice roads.

Global warming will change where we live for very large numbers of people. The problem is that the change is slow enough for people to ignore it.

Hmm sounds like real estate in Siberia predicting global warming to warm it up would be a nice multi generational investment

The book Windfall details all sorts of ways that people are trying to make a buck off of climate change. Good book if you want to see a different side of the issue.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18079772-windfall

Winter is a blessing for transportation and for O&G activity. The incredibly short days and cold nights are definitively not a blessing for the the humans living up there.

Yes, but you will take cold winter any day over the summer bugs. Lot of water and enough black flies and mosquitoes to drive fully grown moose insane.

I think it could also be argued that the proliferation of roads and highways in the United States led to more mobility for citizens. A chicken-and-egg question, for sure, but people are unlikely to move to a place that is largely inaccessible.