Port Kirstin, with 9000 inhabitants is after Moclips, the second largest city in the Northern Isles, located at 70 degrees, 21 minutes north on Kirstin Island. The Northern Isles separate the North Darwinian Ocean from the Acadian Ocean, and their climate gets heavily moderated by the warm Hibernian current flowing north along the east coast of Cascadia. Port Kirstin experiences polar night from November 19th to January 25th, and polar day from May 13th to August 1st.
Industry in Port Kirstin is mainly mining and tourism, and it's a hub for Kirstin Island and islands further north, with an airport serving both local destinations such as Findhorn, Morose, Senne, Twin Bay, Abbieton, Frobisher and Charlotte Island, which are primarily sheep farming communities, as well as Glyndon Bay and Moclips on the southern Northern Isles. There are also daily flights to Beaverton on the Cascadian mainland, as well as twice weekly flights to Bottendaal on Darwinia.
Port Kirstin is also the northernmost deep water port navigable year round, and during the summer this is the starting point for the monthly sea lift to the northern scientific stations on the Akasha, Sedna, Thule and Borealis Islands, which are all north of the 81-degree channel. During winter, these stations get supplied by a weekly flight from Twin Bay, which at 77.5 degrees north, is the northernmost harbour that stays free of pack ice year round.
Port Kirstin got settled by immigrants from the old Earth in 2375, four years after the settling of the Cascadian mainland, and 17 years after the first batch of immigrants arrived on Darwinia. Over the last four centuries, the new Earth has developed a 21st/22nd century lifestyle with use of 28th century technology as this allows the highest standard of living with the lowest possible impact on the environment. The government of the old Earth has severed the ties with the new Earth in 2598 as they did not agree with this in their view, "primitivist" lifestyle. Inhabitants on the new Earth, however, call themselves far from primitivist, they just don't seem to see the benefits of outfitting the whole society with cognital implants and having a robot "working" class doing everything for them. While the old Earth has achieved a population of 20 billion humans and 175 billion robots at the expense of a 99.8% loss of biodiversity, and a 70% loss of arable land due to desertification, the new Earth seems to be thriving with 2.1 billion humans all enjoying a sustainable lifestyle and a preservation of their respective cultures.
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