To add to what's been said, another problem is currently our only fibre link to southern Canada is via the Alaska highway, which gets accidentally cut about once a year or so by a construction company.[0] We have microwave that it will fall back to, but that's extremely limited bandwidth.
[0]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/internet-slowdown-led-to...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/northwestel-restoring-ph...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/internet-outages-frustra...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/northwestel-trying-to-re...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-n-w-t-phone-intern...