。
Winters are cold up north.
Literal
North [of-の] direction [in-では] winter [subject-が] cold.
北の方 literally 'the direction of north' = 'the north, northward regions.' で marks the location (with the contrastive は). 冬が寒い follows the double-subject pattern: topic 'the north,' subject 'winter,' predicate 'cold.'