Exactly. There's literally nothing other than sea ice and open water. Well, much less ice now than there used to be.

All that separates Canada from Russia in the Arctic is either open water or sea ice. And this is very different than the Atlantic/Pacific being open water. The Arctic has sparse marine traffic and much is less monitored. Once the ice melts sufficiently, the Northwest Passage will open which will change everything.

I feel a lot of people look at maps, see Russia on the far right and Canada on the far left and think, "Well they're really far away".