>>2781304The Canadian Shield is a big part of it. Glaciers receding and growing over and over scrubbed away what little soil there was to support vegetation growth, and any soil that does remain is mostly infertile and can't support much life beyond short, simple grasses. No soil means no crops means no agriculture means no civilization. Inuit have a diet that is almost entirely animal-based as a result.
They can't even really build permanent roads and buildings there because of poor soil and/or permafrost. Or well, they can, but it's super expensive and hard to maintain. They have temporary winter roads that get put up over ice fields to move resources out to any communities in the far north, whereas Alaska has a much larger amount of usable coastline compared to the northern Canadian interior. Even in Alaska though, communities are very sparse north of Fairbanks. Oil is the biggest reason anybody bothers with industry in the far north at all.
Siberia by comparison has more useable land in the southern portions of its territory, Krasnoyarsk for example reaches into the 80's in the summer and has a climate similar to northern parts of the continental US.
I don't know much about Finland, honestly. But the fact that they have much more trees and shrubs tells me that their soil is a lot more suitable to agriculture.
