Fred, I've been thinking about your airships proposal for the north; it's a fascinating idea! If you run across any good links; please post them.
We have a huge northern expanse as you do in Alaska. Most of it is unpenetrateable wilderness. I say unpenetrateable because it is incredibly frustrating and expensive, not to mention environmentally disasterous, to build roads or railroads in the north. When the land isn't frozen rock-hard, it is a sea of mushy, seemingly bottomless bog. That probably inhibits development of the north more than any other factor.
Sea transport isn't any easier, the Arctic ocean is frozen a good bit of the year and only open long enough for a few fast trips in and out. The rivers and lakes support ice roads in winter but it's slow and hazardous as well as very expensive. In summer there is a brief flurry of barge traffic on northern rivers before winter shuts that down. The only other alternative has been aircraft and there is quite a lot of very expensive air traffic supplying remote settlements and projects.
It would seem that large airships, cargo carriers and transports, would be a viable alternative. When you spoke of them being used to transport natural gas, I presume you mean the liquid form (LNG)? Why couldn't they be designed to carry LNG out and transport cargo back in?
