due to weather), and terrestrial long-distance networks to only 48 of 93 communities & localities - the rest are served by satellite (transponder lease costs, solar activity interference, adverse angle of signals on entering the atmosphere) As an example of the low population density, the area of Kluane National Park and Reserve in the southwest Yukon, which has an adjacent population of less than 1,100, is . The Golden Horseshoe of Ontario, the area around Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, is , has some 8.1 million people; the densest portion of of the Golden Horseshoe likely has over 5 million people. Northwestel's operating area is one third of Canada's land mass, but only 1/300th of Canada's population. Other phone companies serve much smaller territories and have cities of hundreds of thousands of people. Telus and Bell Canada have cities and urban regions in excess of two million population. An example of extraordinary maintenance costs occurred in the late 1990s when wind blew the satellite dish at Grise Fiord off its base and wrecked it, cutting off communications for a community of just a few hundred people. A replacement dish, and installation crew, had to be sent in by air freight charter, and assembled on site. This sort of cost must be covered as "monopoly local", supported by carrier access tariff fees, or in the resale prices charged to resellers of local service. While not necessarily a cost factor, an adverse effect of the high latitude is the refraction of radio signals by the atmosphere. At Grise Fiord, the satellite antenna faces horizontally south at the satellite which is located over the equator. The signal from the satellite strikes the atmosphere at such a flat angle that adverse conditions can deflect the signal away from the straight-line required to reach the antenna. The effect is similar to how an oar appears bent at the surface of the water. As a result of these factors, long-distance competition arrived some nine years later than in the rest of Canada, and local competition was still not allowed through 2006. In addition, the CRTC recognized the need for external supplementary funding to sustain the company with competition, since it was viewed as essential that Northwestel remain in business to provide basic phone service to all communities it now served. The external subsidy allows the company to offer a long-distance plan, to all communities in its operating