In OTL, the Aleut peoples had entirely missed the Thule diaspora, expanding both east and west, which had taken place entirely to the north of them.
As always, things took place differently in this timeline. Beginning decades earlier, and with a greater population, the diaspora had taken place as or more quickly, but with more energy behind it. The Thule travelled faster and further in greater numbers, numbers that continued to build wherever they went.
Inevitably some would travel or expand into the Alaskan interior pushing against the Dene, and travelling and settling the coasts where they met the Aleut.
However, in the Alaskan west, the Thule had lacked the clear technological advantage that allowed them to sweep away the Dorset. The pre-Agricultural practices emerging from Alaska were still relatively crude, they had allowed the Thule to build numbers, but not overwhelmling numbers. The practices had given them a better tool kit than in OTL, but not necessarily one so much better as to win in every situation.
Local conditions mattered, and the local circumstances of the Aleuts had resulted in a finely tailored technology and lifestyle. The simple fact of the matter is that Aleut package was exquisitely tuned to living on earthquake prone, fog shrouded, rain drenched islands surviving off of sea life.
So the Thule did not displace the Aleuts. Or at least not much. The groups met, the Thule pushed, but an equilibrium established relatively early. Both groups found a basis for trade, or at least ceremonial exchange.
From the Aleut, the Alaskan Thule acquired the concept of toggle harpoons, something they would also acquire from the Dorset in the east. They would trade for waterproof parkas made from Bird skins or seal or sea-lion guts or baskets. For their part, the Thule, with access to a wider trading network introduced pre-agricultural practices that brought claytonia and sweetvetch into the eastern Aleut lands, and eventually flint and copper artifacts and handicrafts.
There was, initially at least, some degree of mixing and merging of Thule with the Aleut, although the Aleut culture remained dominant in its sphere.
But culture is always a moving target. Nothing remains stable. The Aleut had remained a static culture for over two thousand years, living in a changeless world, each island and community a world unto itself, related to but minimally influenced by its neighbors. Change, when it happened, percolated slowly.
The Thule, however, were anything but static. They were a rapidly expanding and innovating culture, and these innovations spread steadily through their range, although at varying speeds. Most of these developments are coming in the east - the accumulation of pre-agricultural practices, the tipping over into agriculture, the domestication of caribou, ptarmigan and arctic hare, the semi-domestications of verminators, the emergence of copper and then bronze metallurgy, the acquisition of nets and sails, the pseudo-domestications of walrus and beluga.
These changes filtered through Alaska, some quickly, some more slowly, dependent on the Alaskan Thule’s own needs and receptiveness. And as these changes filtered through Alaska, we saw changes in the Alaskan Thule lifestyles, in their population and population density, and their movements. In time, these changes worked their way through to the border regions with the Aleut. There were more Thule impinging on or drifting into Aleut territory, sometimes peacefully, Thule communities emerging side by side with Aleut or in Aleut lands, sometimes welcomed, in the form of marriages, mutual gifts and the steady exchanges that would be called trade, sometimes harshly in the form of raids, occasional low level warfare or one on one instances of robbery or murder.
The end result was that Thule culture steadily infiltrated Aleut culture. Sometimes it was as simple as the fact that Aleut had no words for copper or bronze, no language for domesticated ptarmigan or herding caribou. Thule words and concepts infiltrated empty spaces in the Aleut world. But Thule words and concepts, Thule culture was swallowed whole in that what was taken from the Thule - domesticated reindeer or ptarmigan, or new tools, or emerging agriculture adapted to Aleut conditions, changed Aleut society - there was new kinds of work, new kinds of food, more food, more people. As the Thule influences changed Aleut society, the only model that the Aleut had for those changes was Thule.
The process was by no means rapid. Thule innovations were percolating in a bit at a time, mediated by the Alaskan society. And on the other side of the coin, the Aleut were hardly a uniform or unified culture. The Aleut of one end of the island chain, had little to do with the Aleut at the other end of the chain. The changes would have to work their way through the Aleut, from Island to Island, community to community, even as the Thule themselves infiltrated slowly.
But perhaps it was inevitable. Bit by bit, the changes ripple through. Aleut land use shifts in one region, the population increases, the relative wealth increases. People from neighboring islands and or communities are drawn to the wealth, seeking trade, begging gifts, sometimes seeking refuge or temporary shelter. The increased population spreads out to the neighboring communities, or starts new satellite communities.
Caribou are introduced further and further out, sweetvetch, claytonia, ptarmigan, all follow in their own ways. These relieve subsistence bottlenecks, allow increased population, which in addition to the new resources, puts increasing pressure on traditional resources. There’s more fish harvest, more seal harvest, more walrus and otter harvest, more whales killed.
This is more gradual than the European fur trade, which hit like a firestorm, devastating whole populations of animals. The animals have at least some chance to adjust to circumstances, to compete or increase their reproductive rate to compensate for increased hunting pressure. Even where decline takes place, it is slower, more a matter of requiring more and more effort and further and further travel than of rapid collapse.
The overall process is slow, but by approximately 1490, Attu Island, at the far end of the Aleut’s range, is a very different place than in our own timeline. The population is well over 5000, although how far over is difficult to say. In some respects, not much has changed. The island is treeless, covered by low lying scrub and brush, naked rock is everywhere. But now small herds of dwarfish caribou move about, directed by shepherds. Low U shaped mounds dot the country, criss crossed by drainage ditches ponding water into shallow reservoirs that feed the seabirds. Around hutches swarms of ptarmigan dart about. Here and there arctic foxes lurk in the bushes, a misguided introduction.
There are several villages scattered about of varying size. People move easily among the villages, there is not the starvation or scarcity that makes for bitterness. There are still walrus around, though fewer than there used to be. To the east, there are islands where the Walrus has vanished. Sometimes men come from other Islands to hunt Walrus, a practice that meets increasingly grudging acceptance from the locals. The Walrus hunters need to be generous with their gifts, more and more generous as time goes on. There are fewer sea otter about, people are starting to notice, the old timers tell tales of plenty. But there are still plenty of otters, and no shortage of seals. And if you have to travel further than you used to for a whale... Well, that’s whales for you.
It is in 1490, that the people of Attu after some 2400 years finally venture far enough and deep enough into the waters that they find the Commander Islands, which in our time are named Bering and Medny after Russians. Which in this time, the Aleut will call something else.
Bering and Medny are virgin lands, untouched by humans. There are no forests, only dwarf trees hear and there, the island is covered by lichens and mosses, marsh plants. The streams are full of fish, birds are everywhere, including a flightless cormorant (duck). Sea otters are plentiful. The first men who visit stay for a week, hunting and trapping their fill. And then they go home, telling tales of the new land.
And then... Nothing much. The people of Attu do not come from a tradition of colonization. They’ve lived on their island for two millenia. Pulling up stakes, moving to a new and empty land, leaving everything you know... kind of a creepy thought.
So instead, what you get are occasional hunting expeditions. Perhaps rest stops during a particularly arduous or unsuccessful whaling expedition. Sometimes it’s an expedition to collect sea otter pelts, particularly when the local animals seem too cautious and too few, and there’s trading to be done. Occasional expeditions, not regular ones. After all, it’s over two hundred miles away, that’s a very long, long distance.
The animal known as the Stellar’s Sea Cow is observed and remarked upon. It’s easy to kill them, they show no fear of the skin boats, they seem even curious and friendly towards humans. They are not quick, nor are they hunters. They pose no danger munching on sea grasses.
Mainly, they’re too big. For the size of the expeditions, easier to fill your bellies with sea birds, or eggs easily collected, or seals and sea lions and sea otter. Killing a ten ton, thirty foot long sea mammal is a lot of work, dragging the carcass to shore and butchering it properly is a lot more work, and most of it would go to waste. It’s not like there’s value in the things that would make it worth dragging hundreds of pounds of hide or bone back. A few calves are slaughtered, but mostly they are left alone. Tolerated as they follow the skin boats, full of slow bovine curiousity.
During one of these expeditions, something slightly remarkable occurs. A calf follows a returning boat out to the deep water. The hunters are bemused. It’s young, but large enough. Larger than most seals. It’s weaned. They argue among themselves as they watch it’s desperate plodding after them. Has its mother rejected it? Has the mother died? Does it see in the leather hide of the skin boat a new parent? Or is it merely curious, it’s curiousity leading it to almost certain death in the empty ocean.
It’s been a good expedition, the men are happy. Their bellies are full, the hold is laden with sea otter pelts, and they are on their way home. They’re feeling benign and generous, and perhaps sympathetic to the poor creature in their wake. They feed it, from their gathered vegetable stores, from the moss that they carried to pack their cargo or look to their hygeine. They don’t know if it can eat what they offer it, whether it can digest it, or whether it will make them sick. But they offer, and it swims up and takes some of what is offered. These men know something of feeding caribou or ptarmigan from hand, the resemblance warms them.
They give it a name. Sometimes they stop paddling, to let it catch up, or to let it rest. At times, when it seems tired, they hold it to their boat with ropes, making sure it does not sink. The sea journey is not a long one in our terms, perhaps a few days at most. But keeping the creature alive has become a project, and they are surprised at the affection they feel for it.
On the return to Attu, they find it a little cove near their village where it seems able to feed. The thing becomes a wonder. Everyone in the village comes to look at it. Some of the hunters even take their children, holding their boys or girls as they wade into the water, or paddle up to pet it. What a wonder, such a strange strange creature, so gentle even a child can pet it.
There’s a fortunate spell of good weather. The universal agreement in the village is that the creature is a good omen, that it clearly represents good fortune. Word of it spreads. People from other villages on the island walk or take their baidarka out to see it. Travellers and traders from outside come to see it, some holy men, it is said have even made the trip especially to see it. Having it makes the village special.
Sometimes people talk about how it must be lonely, all by itself....