Subarctic The subarctic is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic and covering much of Canada and Siberia , the north of Scandinavia , northern Mongolia and the extreme north of Heilongjiang . Climate and soils In the Köppen climate classification system it is defined as the region where mean monthly temperatures are above 10 °C for at least one and at most three months of the year . This corresponds to Köppen climate types Cfc , Dfc , Dfd , Dwc and Dwd . In most subarctic climates , aside from the maritime Cfc , precipitation tends to be low due to the low moisture content of the cold air . Typically there is a summer maximum in precipitation ranging from moderate in North America to extreme in the Russian Far East . Except in the wettest areas , glaciers are largely absent because of the lack of winter precipitation ; in the wettest areas , however , glaciers tend to be very abundant and Pleistocene glaciation covered even the lowest elevations . Soils of the subarctic are generally very acidic largely because of the influence of the vegetation both in the taiga and in peaty bogs , which tends to acidify the soil , as well as the extreme ease with which leaching of nutrients takes place even in the most heavily glaciated regions . The dominant orders are Spodosols and further north Gelisols . Subarctic regions are often characterized by taiga forest vegetation , though where winters are relatively mild , as in northern Norway , broadleaf forest may occur - though in some cases soils remain too saturated almost throughout the year to sustain any tree growth and the dominant vegetation is a peaty herbland dominated by grasses and sedges . Typically , there are only a few species of large mammals in the subarctic regions , the most important being moose ( Alces alces ) , reindeer Rangifer tarandus , and the wolf ( Canis lupus ) . Agriculture is mainly limited to animal husbandry , though in some areas barley can be grown . Canada and Siberia are very rich in minerals , notably nickel , molybdenum . cobalt , lead , zinc and ( since the 1940s ) uranium , whilst the Grand Banks and Sea of Okhotsk are two of the richest fisheries in the world and provide support for many small towns . Except for those areas adjacent to warm ocean currents , there is almost always continuous permafrost due to the very cold winters . This means that building in most subarctic regions is very difficult and expensive : cities are very few ( Yakutsk being the largest ) and generally small , whilst roads are few and railways non-existent . An important consequence is that transportation tends to be restricted to `` bush '' planes , helicopters and , in summer , river boats . Economy Except for a few parts of Europe where the winters are relatively mild due to the Gulf Stream , subarctic regions were not explored until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries . Even then , the difficulty of transportation ensured that few settlements ( most of them created for mining ) lasted long - the ghost towns of the Yukon , Northwest Territories and increasingly Siberia illustrate this . The Trans-Siberian Railway , which skirts the edge of the region , provided a major boost to Russian settlement in the subarctic , as did the intensive industrialisation under Stalin that relied on the enormous mineral resources of the Central Siberian Plateau . Today , many towns in subarctic Russia are declining precipitously as former mines close . In Canada , after the early minerals run out , development stalled until hydroelectric development occurred in the 1950s and 1960s . Hydro-Québec in particular has carried out many remarkable engineering works in regions of near-continuous permafrost , but these have never supported a significant population and have mainly served densely populated southern Québec . Tourism in recent years has become a major source of revenue for most countries of the subarctic due to the beautiful , generally glacial , lanscapes so characteristic of the region . Most areas in the subarctic are among the most expensive places in the world to visit , both due to high costs of living and extreme difficulties of transport . Nonetheless , the great opportunities for outdoor recreation lure an ever-increasing number of travellers . At the same time , the older industries of the subarctic ( fishing , mining , hydroelectric power ) are being threatened both by environmental opposition and overfishing leading to depleted stocks of commercially important species . Transportation There were different kinds of transportation in the Subarctic region , as well as in the different seasons . In the summer , the Subarctic people travelled in light canoes . That was only possible in the areas where there were lakes , ponds or rivers that seemed to flow endlessly . If they needed to walk , they would be carrying their belongings on their backs , ( like we are now doing with our backpacks ) carried by a tumpline across their head . If it was winter , they walked through the snow with their snowshoes . Snowshoes are made of birch frames and babiche ( rawhide ) lacing . A woman of the tribe had to cooperate with a man to make a snowshoe . The man would make the frame and the woman would sew it up with the babiche lacing . They would drag their possessions on toboggans . They used dogs after the Europeans came.Then they started to use cars . See also Subarctic climate Categories : Asia | Regions of Asia 