What it’s like living in the coldest town on Earth

I'm curious, do you know what you're talking about? It doesn't really sound like it.

Septic tanks do have to be built differently, but they do work at extreme temperatures.

Yes, you do insulate pipes better, yes you do also use heat tape to prevent pipes from freezing. This is pretty standard practice. In general, if you're heating something in the ground, you're going to have it well insulated, and heat it to barely above freezing. The ground, though frozen does provide a great deal of insulation as well. When the air is really cold, the ground is going to be significantly warmer The big issue here is melting that permafrost and causing the ground to sink. This wrecks foundations and cracks pipes.

Yes, we do use block heaters, but you also have to start your car and let it warm up for quite a while before driving. Cars do behave differently at -40, but they are still usable. Once you start dropping below -50F, cars do start behaving really poorly. I wouldn't recommend biking in those temperatures unless you know what you're doing. My dad usually stops riding his bike to work at around -30F.

Yes, the cost of living (for many, but not all things) is higher in remote areas. No, the cost does not rise 10x.

Heating is a big expense, but can be mitigated by building well insulated homes. There is a high prevalance of dry cabins for lower incomes, since the lack of plumbing means you can afford to let a building freeze if you don't have tenants to pay for heat. That said, you can also heat or supplement the heat for your house the old fashioned way, with a wood burning stove.

Yes, many of the issues (and choice) above have a lot of do with poverty. Most of the ways you can reduce the costs of living in an extreme environment (high quality windows, good insulation, a heated garage for your car) require initial outlays of capital. Solutions like wood burning stoves and outhouses mitigate that to some extent.

The article seemed poorly written and researched to me. It's amusing to watch people speculate about things they don't understand.

Every car here has 3 heaters actually.

Block Heater: Like you mention, in the 500W range and heats the coolant (basically a kettle element)

Oil Pan Heater: A stick-on heater that goes on the underside of the oil pan, usually in the 200-500W range. It heats the oil, because past about -35C oil has the consistency of butter, even synthetic will do that past about -40C. If you have a big vehicle, you stick more than one on.

Battery Blanket: Like an electric heating blanket for the battery. If the battery freezes, it's done for, so you don't want that. You'll also get a lot more current out of a warm battery, which is critical when you turn the key at -40C and have to spin all that cold oil.

Everyone also puts cardboard or whatever in front of their radiator for the winter so when you drive on the highway the vehicle can actually get up to running temperature.

In Whitehorse we have cable internet and TV, and you can get 100Mbps Cable for $140/mo with a 300GB usage cap.

All the internet is capped, which is the worst part.

As soon as you're out of town, you can only get DSL, up to a maximum of 15Mbps, though most people top out at 5Mbps due to distance from exchange. Checkout the only provider for more prices http://www.nwtel.ca/personal/internet/packages (I work for them...)

Cell phones are good now - 3G in pretty much every town, though basically nothing between towns. It's normal to do a 6 hour drive and only have coverage for 30 mins of that.

In the bigger cities there are rarely weather related interruptions - as must stuff is on fiber, though once you start getting out things change. Of course, if you're in a town of 100 people in or very near the Arctic Circle you have to expect you're not getting 100Mbps internet with no interruptions.... it's all about expectations.

If I had to guess, the reason why block heaters aren't mandatory is because they are rarely necessary, especially with petrol engines. Helpful perhaps, but not necessary. (Yet I do have a petrol-operated heater to help reduce harmful emissions and possibly engine stress -- if only I remembered to use it those rare occasions I store the car in the cold. I've yet to come across a situation where a car wouldn't start because of temperature here.)

These areas, in Siberia and northern NA are much colder at times, even when they aren't within the Arctic Circle, so their situation might be considerably different.

There's a site run by some well-travelled Russian photo-blogger that I once ended up on thanks to a link someone posted on HN. Good stuff. Takes a while to get used to the author's obsession with traffic signs and trash cans, but it's good.

Here's part one of his trip to this region:

http://tema.ru/eng/travel/yakutetnoexp-1/

The site's hard to navigate. You may have to hit "english" at the top right (assuming you don't want the Russian version) since it may not retain language state through links. The "veni, vidi" link on the top left will take you back to the master list, so you can find the other parts of the trip if you're interested. Photos with little squares on the top right are actually little galleries. Click the other squares to change the image.

Unrelated insights gained from the site:

* The smaller touristy Pacific islands are typically covered in garbage.

* Former British colonies are usually OK, former French colonies are usually awful.

* Ethiopia looks like a pretty cool place to visit.