Lands of Ice and Mice: An Alternate History of the Thule

[DG Valdron]

Hm. And only six decades till Columbus...or are you butterflying the C-man?

Nope. The C-Man is on schedule. The Aztecs, etc. etc. are still screwed. The new world pandemics all pretty much run on schedule.

The Greenland Norse are on their last legs, and have mostly fallen out of history. If things had turned out a bit differently, the Interchange might have happened earlier, but probably no more than 50 to 70 years earlier tops.

As it is, I rely upon the 'human beings screw up everything possible' paradigm. The interchange is happening pretty much at its last possible period for the Thule, when their agricultural society is all but impinging on the Norse, and when the flow of artifacts and stories has reached a sort of critical mass.

If European exploration proceeds as OTL, Europeans may run into the Thule in Newfoundland by the early 1500s...

Northern Labrador is pretty much the furthest limits of their sway. Directly to the south are the Cree, who they managed to push somewhat, but proved tolerably good at pushing back. They never reached Newfoundland.

Actual contact with the Thule doesn't begin until the first serious expeditions to find a Northwest Passage begin with Frobisher in the 1570's. Follow up expeditions, petering out by 1620, are discouraged by the Thule.

I'm still working out how things shake out in the 1600's and 1700's. Things get really complicated around that time. Gold isn't really a factor for the Thule that far east, and no one's really gotten far enough to enter the MacKenzie/Coppermine cultural area where gold is actively used. But the Thule have a huge hunger for western tools, particularly metalwork and fabric, which are difficult and expensive for them to produce themselves. In turn, the Fur trade is going to be in full swing, and the Thule are going to struggle to control the northern fur trade routes, even as the Europeans are trying for direct access to the southern fur trappers. Throw in the pandemics, which will be coming along, and its going to be interesting times.

 

[DG Valdron]

GREENLAND, 1431 CE, JUST BEYOND THE NORSE EASTERN SETTLEMENT

“You’re out of your mind, you know that?” The young man groused.

They squatted on a rocky plain, mosses and weeds poking up all around. The wind howled mournfully. The sun was at their backs. As plains went, it was not terribly large. Big enough to see someone coming, small enough to flee into the foothills.

Behind them, far enough away to be at the edges of bowshot, a group of warriors of the people waited. Well, not actually warriors. A collection of more than two dozen men and boys and a few women, all with spears and arrows and harpoons, anything that looked sharp and dangerous. The old man estimated that fewer than half of them could reliably hit anything with an arrow. Still, they looked dangerous enough, and that was all he thought he needed.

He busied himself with rearranging the tableau in front of him. Different kinds of roots, dried berries, some furs, gloves, a few pemmicans, tools, toys, adornments. He added some moss to the fire, the dried vegetation burned smokily, sending a whispy white plume up in to the sky.

“They are dangerous lunatics. You think that they’re going to sit down and engage in a greeting ceremony. Chop you to pieces more like it.”

“It’s not a greeting ceremony,” the old man said patiently. “That would be wasted. Like giving dogs a greeting ceremony.”

“Looks like one to me.”

The old man looked up. “These things, they are like the ones to the south back in the land. They look like people, like human beings, but they are not. They are more like dogs in their nature. A funny sort of animal.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“You know how to win a dog?” The old man said. “You feed it.”

“Well, you’ll be lucky if they don’t chop you up first, and then eat second.”

“I might be at that. Worth the risk.”

“Fool!”

“Dolt!” The old man swore back, but his voice was tinged with affection.

“They’re coming,” the young man said, peering off into the distance. “Quite a lot of them. They look mean.”

“Took them long enough.”

“And dangerous. That’s a lot of pointy things they have.”

“As expected.”

“And they’re shouting.”

Abruptly, the young man dropped to his knees.

“You go back. Let me wait here for them. The world is a better place if you stay in it. Don’t get yourself chopped up.”

The old man laughed.

“I know two things,” he said. “If I stay here and greet them, I might get chopped up. If you stay, with your shitty attitude, we’ll all get chopped up.”

“I can’t talk you out of this mad foolishness. We’re almost out of time.”

“No.”

“I love you grandfather.”

“You’re a good boy,” the old man said. “But now you have to go back to the others. Do not run. They will take that as fear. Never run from a dog, they chase. Go and wait and watch. We’ll see whether I live or die.”

The young man passed out of sight. Behind him, the old man listened to the careful footsteps of his grandson, the measured pace of each step, struggling not to sprint.

Ahead of him, the Vikings approached.

Would it hurt to smile at them? Maybe, maybe not.

The old man smiled.

 

[Pesterfield]

even as the Europeans are trying for direct access to the southern fur trappers.

Will trapping stay dominate, or would Thule influence and example suggest fur farms might be more profitable?

Could the Thule get into fur breeding themselves?

 

[Falecius]

Will trapping stay dominate, or would Thule influence and example suggest fur farms might be more profitable?

Could the Thule get into fur breeding themselves?

I guess that at least for ermine and fox, apparently they could. Not sure how valuable arctic hare fur would be.
As I said above, otters have a small chance as well.
And if seals populations are managed, there that possibility too, though I think the Europeans will want more than the Thule are willing or able to give them. They might try self-service in Newfoundland (by the way, I should edit my map. It showed part of Newfoundland as Thule).

 

[DG Valdron]

I guess that at least for ermine and fox, apparently they could. Not sure how valuable arctic hare fur would be.
As I said above, otters have a small chance as well.
And if seals populations are managed, there that possibility too, though I think the Europeans will want more than the Thule are willing or able to give them. They might try self-service in Newfoundland (by the way, I should edit my map. It showed part of Newfoundland as Thule).

And they do get a ways further down the Siberian coast towards the Kara Sea.

But as a whole, the map is almost supernaturally accurate.

 

[Daztur]

Very interesting TL, I just finished getting caught up. One thing I'm interested in seeing is what happens to Thule farmland that gets abandoned after the plagues hit. It'll certainly be different than today's arctic.

 

[Danbensen]

I'm still working out how things shake out in the 1600's and 1700's. Things get really complicated around that time. Gold isn't really a factor for the Thule that far east, and no one's really gotten far enough to enter the MacKenzie/Coppermine cultural area where gold is actively used. But the Thule have a huge hunger for western tools, particularly metalwork and fabric, which are difficult and expensive for them to produce themselves. In turn, the Fur trade is going to be in full swing, and the Thule are going to struggle to control the northern fur trade routes, even as the Europeans are trying for direct access to the southern fur trappers. Throw in the pandemics, which will be coming along, and its going to be interesting times.

There might also be trade to the east. Russia hit Chukchi lands in the 1650s, and Japan established a colony on Sakhalin in 1679. These might be other sources of metal and cloth, as well as (from Japan) laquerware, which at least the Ainu thought was worth trading for.

 

[Danbensen]

A couple of points. I don't see them as ignoring each other for two centuries. Rather, I see this as a case of two very alien cultures having consistently violent interactions.

Sorry if my criticism seems to outweigh my praise. It's always easier to find flaws than express why you like something, and I really do enjoy this timeline.

In OTL there's clear indications of Norse/Inuit contact, in the form of Norse artifacts showing up at Inuit sites... but very few Inuit artifacts in Norse sites. The implication is that the exchange tended to be one way - ie, the Inuit of OTL raided or attacked the Norse.

The argument is for instance that the lack of Inuit artifacts in Norse sites was a sign of cultural resistance. That may be so, but there were clearly valuable things the starving Norse might have wanted - toggle harpoons, kayaks, a new design for winter wear, techniques for hunting ring seal, that they didn't adopt or trade for. I don't know how much we can put on cultural resistance, particularly in a community under stress.

Stress might cause greater conservationism. But if I understand you correctly, the fact that the Norse could have adopted Inuit technology and didn't argues that there wasn't enough peaceful contact between the two to allow for exchange of ideas. Did I get that right?


>>What are hunters going to do when they come across slow moving animals easy to approach? And how are the herders going to feel about that?<<
I got that, and I like how you demonstrated that in the text of the story.

I suppose what I'd like to read more of is how Norse/Thule interactions ITTL were different from Norse/Inuit interactions IOTL, or were they different at all?

>>Steel swords: I actually just described that happening.<<
I admit I wasn't reading super-carefully, but what stuck with me was that they stripped the corpse and trinkets like his buttons were eventually traded back to the mainland Thule. I expected to read something about how either the guy who plundered the sword found it useful and did something impressive with it (i.e. killed someone), or failed to recognize what it was good for and discarded it. An episode like that might be a good vehicle for you to explain why Thule/Norse interchange didn't go farther.

On the subject of raiding settlements for women: even if it doesn't produce cultural exchange, Scandinavian genes might give the Greenland Thule an edge when the plagues hit.

>>Overall, my view is that for much of the interaction of the first couple of centuries, its not all that conducive to productive cultural exchange. The peoples are too different, the interactions are prone to be violent, and even where peacable, are going to be small scale and local.<<
I can buy that. I think because readers of alt history (me included) tend to expect fireworks at every opportunity, there's an extra burden on you as a writer to make us understand why the fireworks aren't happening yet. If the Rule of Cool states that readers don't care about plausibility if you give them explosions, then the opposite is also true.

>>Most artifacts and objects remain in the hands of the locals who find them, a fraction get traded or exchanged short distances, an even smaller fraction get traded or exchanged long distances.<<
It might be interesting for those priests from the mainland to find the degenerate provincials on Greenland using a few bafflingly advanced hand-tools.
>>
The argument between the young man and the old man is a dialogue...<<
Absolutely, and I loved it. Showing not telling. It's just the "they may have something to teach us/What? How to starve to death?" line was so striking, that's what I remembered after reading.

Unfortunately I then jumped the gun and responded before you posted the next chapter (I was excited). The two priests at the (non)greeting ceremony are the same as the two priests who look at the Norse ruins, right?

This is about setting the stage...
The cultural exchange is about to begin.

Rock on, DValdron, rock on.

 

[DG Valdron]

In OTL there's clear indications of Norse/Inuit contact, in the form of Norse artifacts showing up at Inuit sites... but very few Inuit artifacts in Norse sites. The implication is that the exchange tended to be one way - ie, the Inuit of OTL raided or attacked the Norse.

Stress might cause greater conservationism. But if I understand you correctly, the fact that the Norse could have adopted Inuit technology and didn't argues that there wasn't enough peaceful contact between the two to allow for exchange of ideas. Did I get that right?

Correct. For that matter, hypothetically, the OTL inuit could have adopted at least some Norse technology or ways. That doesn't seem to have happened, with the possible exception of Kvan harvest. My thinking is that the pastoral/agricultural Norse and the hunting/nomadic Inuit cultures really didn't have sufficient common ground or sustained contact for any kind of transfer. My view here, is that the Thule Agricultural Revolution has to catch up to Greenland before the Thule there can find enough common ground with the Norse.


>I suppose what I'd like to read more of is how Norse/Thule interactions ITTL >were different from Norse/Inuit interactions IOTL, or were they different at >all?

Not so much different from OTL at least in the pre-agricultural phase. The Thule might have been a little more sophisticated as time went on, and the trading networks a bit more elaborate. But it took time for the changes in Thule core society to find their way out to Greenland.


>>Steel swords: I actually just described that happening.<<

>I admit I wasn't reading super-carefully, but what stuck with me was that >they stripped the corpse and trinkets like his buttons were eventually traded >back to the mainland Thule. I expected to read something about how either >the guy who plundered the sword found it useful and did something >impressive with it (i.e. killed someone), or failed to recognize what it was >good for and discarded it. An episode like that might be a good vehicle for >you to explain why Thule/Norse interchange didn't go farther.

Well, mutual random murder explains a lot.

As for the sword, they Thule had no concept for it, and the best interpretation was as a club or a very long axe. They understood metal (the Greenland inuit of OTL certainly engaged in ironworking from the Cape York meteorite), but the shape was utterly impractical. It was broken to pieces on rocks, the components divided among the men and made into Thule knives and cutting tools.


>On the subject of raiding settlements for women: even if it doesn't produce cultural exchange, Scandinavian genes might give the Greenland Thule an edge when the plagues hit.

Maybe.

>I can buy that. I think because readers of alt history (me included) tend to >expect fireworks at every opportunity, there's an extra burden on you as a >writer to make us understand why the fireworks aren't happening yet. If the >Rule of Cool states that readers don't care about plausibility if you give them >explosions, then the opposite is also true.

My experience of real life is that everything takes longer and costs more, people constantly fail to seize opportunities, and steps are taken only when the accumulated force behind them becomes almost inevitable.

Once in a while someone jumps ahead. But mostly not.

>The argument between the young man and the old man is a dialogue...<<
>Absolutely, and I loved it. Showing not telling. It's just the "they may have >something to teach us/What? How to starve to death?" line was so striking, >that's what I remembered after reading.

>Unfortunately I then jumped the gun and responded before you posted the >next chapter (I was excited). The two priests at the (non)greeting ceremony >are the same as the two priests who look at the Norse ruins, right?

Shamans. The role of Shamans has evolved a great deal. But essentially, they are mediators between the Thule and the 'spirit world' which basically involves anything unknown or alien to the Thule world.

And yes, they're the same guys.

 

[DG Valdron]

There might also be trade to the east. Russia hit Chukchi lands in the 1650s, and Japan established a colony on Sakhalin in 1679. These might be other sources of metal and cloth, as well as (from Japan) laquerware, which at least the Ainu thought was worth trading for.

Yeah. Things are going to work out differently on the Pacific and Siberian coasts.

 

[Shevek23]

The Greenland Norse have been isolated from Europe themselves for a long time, and the age of really spectacular epidemic diseases started after their ancestors left. Even if they brought versions of diseases with them that later evolved into something spectacular in Europe, the versions they brought died out or mutated into more benign forms in the small population bottlenecks of Iceland then Greenland.

I don't think the Scandinavian-descended genes will be a big help to the Greenland Thule; had the Greenland Norse managed to survive and keep their numbers up, they too would be badly decimated by 16th century European contact.

Otherwise--now that DValdron has explained it, I find the late effective contact between the Greenland peoples plausible enough.

One thing to consider--from a Thule point of view, the Norse and the main-ecumene Europeans are contacts with essentially the same people, happeing at just about the same time. The Europeans sent an advance wave, advanced by nearly half a thousand years, but they took their sweet time making contact. From a Thule point of view it's all happening at once.

From a Norse point of view--well, I expect that since OTL this generation of Greenlander Norse either died out or left for Iceland, much the same will happen to these Norse ITTL, except more of them go west to join the Thule instead. The settlements either will be emptied as OTL, or if they stay viable it will be because some Thule settle there too. So Norse society in Thule land will have been scattered and diluted; possibly if we have some Norse family trying to cling to pride and dignity a century hence they will bitterly regret that either their ancestors couldn't hold out another century or that the Europeans couldn't show up a century earlier. But more likely they will be fully assimilated into the Thule society anyway.

From a European point of view any recognizable surviving Norse will have gone native in a big way, the Norse influences might not be apparent as such, and at first glance the Greenland settlements might as well never have existed.

 

[Danbensen]

GREENLAND, 1431 CE, JUST BEYOND THE NORSE EASTERN SETTLEMENT

Awesome. Why did the young shaman fall to his knees? Surprise, I assume, but on first read-through, I thought the Norse had shot him with an arrow or something.

I don't think the Scandinavian-descended genes will be a big help to the Greenland Thule; had the Greenland Norse managed to survive and keep their numbers up, they too would be badly decimated by 16th century European contact.

I was going to dig my mighty research hooks into this assumption and cast it disproven to the dust. But then I actually did the research and it looks like you're right. Here come the details:

The diseases that killed the Americas' native population were smallpox, the flu, bubonic plague, and pneumonic plague, all of which produced epidemics in Europe after the Greenland Norse left. Thus, while there is evidence that Europeans enjoy more immunity to smallpox than other people (http://www.pnas.org/content/100/25/15276.full), the Greenland Norse might not have the gene for it.

The Inuit specifically (and much more recently than I thought) were devastated by tuberculosis, measles, and trichinosis, in addition to the above. The ancestors of the Greenland Norse might have been exposed to measles or something like it. And they were certainly exposed to tuberculosis, and might have evolved innate immunity to it (http://cmr.asm.org/content/15/2/294.full).

However, living on Greenland exposed these people to far different selective pressures than in a city in Europe, connected by trade to diseases from three continents. Even if the Greenland Norse had better-than-average immunity to measles and tuberculosis, they might not have kept those adaptations through the bottleneck of winter die-off. Even worse, OTL Greenland Inuit died of European diseases as late as the 1900s, suggesting that whatever Norse genes they might have inherited did them no good.

The only thing that could save any hypothetical 16th-century Thule/Norse hybrids from European diseases would be if there were records of plagues during the early settlement of Greenland by the OTL Norse. If there were (especially among the Inuit), that would mean the Norse DID introduce diseases to which they themselves were immune. If not, then I guess it's most reasonable to say that they'll drop like flies when the Europeans arrive, probably worse than they did IOTL, since they'll have a bigger, better-connected population.

On the other hand, and I don't want to come off as a eugenicist here, but the Norse might have contributed other genes that did get selected for. Lactose tolerance springs to mind, and alcohol tolerance too, depending on the culture the Thule adopt (but I can see how milking sheep might give whoever does it a huge caloric advantage). Do light irises actually improve vision? I can't find a credible source to suppose that. And um...lots of facial and body hair? That's got to be useful in Greenland, right?

 

[DG Valdron]

Honestly, any genetic contribution that the Norse make is going to be minimal, mostly confined to southern Greenland, and mostly vanished in a handful of generations.

Remember, this isn't like the hundred monkeys scenario. Even when an idea or a gene emerges or crosses over into a society, it takes time and circumstances to move and spread.

 

[farwalker]

So happy to see this back in action!

I like what's been done to avoid wankage, but I wonder how this will all play out. I somehow doubt we're going to get a recognizable Canada out of this TL simply because of the larger population in the North and the more agricultural Cree will be much less likely to become dependent on the European fur trade. It goes without saying that a Hudson's Bay Company is highly unlikely in this TL.

 

[DG Valdron]

So happy to see this back in action!

I like what's been done to avoid wankage, but I wonder how this will all play out. I somehow doubt we're going to get a recognizable Canada out of this TL simply because of the larger population in the North and the more agricultural Cree will be much less likely to become dependent on the European fur trade. It goes without saying that a Hudson's Bay Company is highly unlikely in this TL.

Well, the Cree aren't actually that agricultural. The package has difficulty moving south. Past a certain point, pycrete doesn't serve, and a two or three year cycle for growing crops has trouble competing with wild foods.

I can tell you that there's going to be a huge contest between the British and Thule for control of the Hudson Bay coast, and the Cree are going to be interested in breaking the Thule strangle hold on trade.

 

[Pesterfield]

Well, the Cree aren't actually that agricultural. The package has difficulty moving south.

Will the NorthWest's more southern package be expanding?

Also could the Cree pick up on what the Thule are doing and try adapting it to local crops? At least the basics of gather, but leave a bit behind and maybe spread it around.

 

[DG Valdron]

There are opportunity costs for switching or adapting lifestyles.

The Cree are riverine nomads. The move through their broad territory using rivers and streams to get around in the bush. Food and resources are highly seasonal and very local.

So for instance, the sturgeon spawn in the spring, so you have to be at the spawning locations near the falls and rapids, at a time when the water's running heavy and hard. Pickerel harvest is in the fall, when the fish spawn in the shallows. The caribou are migratory, they pass through over a six week period. You can make a good living, but you have to go travelling to a lot of locations, you have to understand the inns and outs of each location.

Even a semi-agricultural lifestyle, can cut deeply into that. And that makes it tricky. To farm, to raise plants, you're giving up other parts of your lifestyle and food package. That's risky. Particularly if you're looking at an agricultural package that can take a few years to produce a result. There's not a lot of incentive to to that, if there are alternatives available. If you have a low population density, then its tempting

From what we can tell of the historical record, its not often that a successful hunter/gatherer culture chooses to take up agriculture. Rather, quite often, what we see are agriculturalists cultures pushing the hunter gatherers out.

In any event, its not a likely option for the Cree. Relations between Cree and Thule are not civil, but essentially amount to a contuing low level 'kill on site' state of warfare along the borderlines. The lifestyles are incompatible. The Cree don't like the Thule, don't like their lifestyle, and while they're prepared to raid the crops, they lack the overall knowledge framework and cultural communication with the Thule to consider adopting them.

 

[DG Valdron]

The Northwest hybrid package is slightly different. But again, rather than neighbors adopting, this is more likely to take the situation of the Agricultural group slowly expanding, fissioning, and pushing its neighbors.

 

[Shevek23]

But, we're already getting into the era of European contact. I've bubbled over with dizzy fantasies about Thule in the modern era before, so I'll try to keep that in check here.

While I expect the European disease cocktail to do terrible things, the more effectively the more developed the interesting developed aspects of Thule society are (high-density settlements, trade networks, far-reaching political systems, organized centers of learning, etc) the Thule do have an advantage people like the Central Americans did not--the Europeans are going to have a tough time moving in on the territories the general devastation of plague and associated social breakdown leave vacated or incapable of organized defense. Now Europeans actually didn't find it easy to settle in tropical lands either, and at least northern Europeans do know a thing or two about dealing with cold, and if they can pick up the Thule agricultural package at all they might do considerably better farther north than OTL.

But they aren't going to be as attracted to move into the tundra lands, even though there is gold to be had there. The Thule won't be exterminated by disease alone and the survivors will be effective at defending their homelands. In the critical centuries when the population is plummeting due to disease, European settlement will be diverted toward the temperate lands and trading hegemonies will be a matter of negotiating deals with local powers--who are, in the Arctic, Thule. And I think the Thule agricultural package is weird enough that Europeans will take some time and need some teaching to learn it.

So there won't be conquistadors coming in and granting each other encomedias or the like of forced-labor natives to run their haciendas on. Fewer Europeans will venture into the Thule lands and they'll tend to teach as much as they learn.

The idea of the Arctic as a fastness, defensible and not very appealing to greedy Europeans, is the foundation of my notion that the Thule can recover as a separate nation, or alternatively negotiate a relatively favorable deal as a client protectorate, and their society can engage with early modern Europe rather than be shattered and overwhelmed by it.

It's also part of my "Ice Arab" vision, that eventually the Thule with "Tundra Power" will adopt a role as trading middlemen over near-polar Arctic great circle trade routes not opened up for practical use OTL until the advent of long-range reliable air travel--not routinely exploited in fact until the jet age. But I can hope to see some significant trade, at least as significant as the trade across the Sahara that enabled the rise of Timbuktu and other trade cities in the Sahel, or earlier--the identity of the Arab peoples themselves in Arabia and the desert lands contained within the arc of the Fertile Crescent.

The Arabs were shaped by thousands of years of such roles, the Thule will only have a few centuries, so "Ice Arab" is a bit hyperbolic I admit.

But I cling to the hope that there will indeed be more interest in and knowledge of the Arctic in the Euro-Atlantic meta-society, and by the time Europeans (or some Alt-USA perhaps, or much different Western Hemisphere offspring society) take a really keen interest in seriously developing the Arctic, they will have to do so in partnership with Thule in some guise. Thule will to some degree own the Arctic development--trade routes, infrastructure, mines, "fields" for their types of crops, and cities. Some may be under European crowns or federated into some Columbian* polity that is basically European in origin but anyway the Thule won't be remnant peoples shoved aside onto marginal reservations--not all of them will anyway. And I expect some regions in the high Arctic will be fully independent Thule lands. These might or might not include the most prosperous ones, but if any of them are poor, they will be fiercely defensive of their lands and able to carry it off with a judicious mix of expensive foreign arms, their own tricks, and the forbidding land itself--to be sure, other powers that want to cow them can probably boast some acculturated Thule troops of their own. But I'm comparing to places like Afghanistan here; at some point, imperial power fails.

As you can see I can't stop haring off to the wide horizons of 19th and 20th Century Thule. Clearly we need to get into the 16th century first!

I am excited to see that DValdron may be getting us there soon.

-----
*ITTL name for what we call North America (no word I recall yet on what they call South America) as settled in DirtyCommie's first post--has he bowed out of this project in a final way, by the way?

 

[Sam R.]

Would it hurt to smile at them? Maybe, maybe not.

The old man smiled.

It takes an unusual person to take such a risk in the hope of human solidarity. Particularly when there's no economic bridge, and only an ideology of exploratory action-research for status effects.

Who knows what two legged dogs will do?

yours,
Sam R.