A wonderful update.
Expected Iquntaq's reach to be more than his grasp but what a legacy
Expected Iquntaq's reach to be more than his grasp but what a legacy
Lands of Ice and Mice: An Alternate History of the Thule
- Thread starter DirtyCommie
- Start date
- Status
Overthrown 1624, died 1626 while fighting a enemies from the south and trying to rebuild his coalition.
There are maps depicting the Thule realm earlier on in the thread. I'm sure that we can dig them out. Were you looking for something more specific? The layout of Hudson Bay, etc.?
Iquntaq in a sense wasn't doing much more than picking up off the shelf stuff from his local culture. By this time 'monopoly trading networks' were well known in Thule Culture. There's the Ellesmere Network which was bringing telluric and meteoric Iron down from Greenland. In the South, there were various timber barons bringing wood up the Churchill and Nelson river outlets on the lower part of Hudson Bay. Further to the interior, there was bronze.
For each of the large long distance trading networks, there were challenges. The Ellesmere network, for instance had been confronted with Bog Iron from Labrador. The efforts to establish a timber monopoly in the south were contested. But clearly, part of the cultural and local strategy/store of knowledge was that if you could monopolize a resource, it was better than struggling against competitors.
Beyond these large scale traders, you had 'small scale' networks, like Iquntaq's and other Caribou herders. Essentially Caribou herding, migratory or semi-migratory Thule moving goods or trade items between communities. The scales of distance was much smaller than those of the great trading networks. Although the volume was much greater, the relative value of items was lower and competitition much more stiff.
Iquntaq essentially saw an opportunity to move up into the big time by establishing a new monopoly for a suite of highly desirable items. It was a good leap, but not an impossible one. Even if he had not been around, its inevitable that someone else, possibly several someones would have seen the advantages of a possible monopoly and tried to impose it.
The outcome would have been Medicine Wars of course. Perhaps delayed a few years, or perhaps taking place earlier. Likely much more ferocious, with more European involvement.
Given the very narrow window of access to Hudson Bay waters, both seasonally (maybe two good summer months, and a relatively narrow strip of coast of a few hundred miles), and given the ferocious climate, European contact and intervention was going to be intermittent, and the odds were that ultimately, it would be something the Thule would sort out definitively among themselves.
Not totally guaranteed. Some outcomes of hypothetical Medicine Wars might see the establishment of permanent European settlements or outposts, or even domination.
But the most likely outcomes were going to be either a state-like entity, or coalition, or perhaps two or three of them, striving to control the interface of European trade.
Iquntaq's strength as well as weakness was his vision. He was able to jump to several mostly correct guesses about the future opportunities of European trade and European behaviour, and act on it. Unfortunately, this required him to make an extravagant series of promises everywhere, which eventually caught up with him. In modern terms, he built his empire with debt financing, and eventually the bills outran the cash flow. He also made way too many bitter enemies.
In the end, his 'empire' was a personal construct, dependent on his own charisma and network of promises. The Empire of Tayat which eventually succeeded him was in many ways a more formal structure. Tayat proved far better at delegating and at establishing systems.
Overall, I see this is broadly analogous to New Zealand's gunpowder wars, or the Polynesian Empires in Hawaii and Samoa that emerged following European contact, or some of the early encounters with European traders. More than anything, I think that geography tells the tale in this situation. The reality is that the Hudson Bay west coast is not a particularly good gateway into the Thule realm. The major rivers, the Churchill and the Nelson, have drainage basins that lead southwest, into boreal forest and cree territory. Terrific if you're fur trading. Not so good if you want to penetrate into deep Thule.
Rather, getting from the West Coast of Hudson Bay to the heartlands of the McKenzie Basin and Alaska means you have to pass through a lot of harsh overland territory. We're talking Caribou expeditions overland, relatively thinly populated tundra and oasis. The Hudson Bay coast was an area of relatively easy transportation with a large hinterland, and difficult interior access. Conditions favoured a situation where the Thule could embrace and control contact, and utilize the wealth and products of contact (including firearms), to consolidate politically.
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On the Cusp - A Survey of the Thule, circa 1600
Welcome to the Thule Realm. Not a state, or even a series of states per se, although many regions are beginning to develop into states or statelike entities. We have a Theocracy over here, a pseudo-feudal regime over there, an empire is taking shape there, a trade-network up here.
This is not a civilization, though arguably the beginnings of civilization are here. If we had to describe the Thule in modern terms, we would call them the last of the Dawn Civilizations, come to stride the world stage.
The Thule, expanding east and west, have ranged across the circumference of the north pole, finally meeting themselves in Siberia. They occupy a landscape vast as a continent, yet strangely uniform. History unites them, or perhaps lack of history - it is barely seven hundred years since they left their homeland, barely four hundred years since they began to farm, less than a hundred years since their expansions east and west finally closed the arctic circle. They remain close to their origins.
There are other factors that bind them together as a people or a culture, if not a state - the uniformity of their arctic landscapes and the lifestyles that landscape demands, the language slowly and relentlessly fracturing into dialects, the shamanic tradition, shared cultural legacies.
The Thule of 1610 are no longer a pure Dawn Civilization. Contact with the dying Norse of Greenland has resulted in an interchange, new ideas, new plants and animals, writing, sails, fish nets and looms have crept into their culture, giving them a leg up. Sporadic contacts at the fringes between Europe and Thule have already begun in Iceland, Greenland and Labrador, and the ripples have begun to flow, even as the Little Ice Age begins to settle in.
But in 1610, the Thule realm is mostly oblivious to Europe, and vice versa. The two realms have fumbled dimly towards each other. But now, the Thule world is going to change, dramatically and irrevocably.
So let’s examine that world, before everything changes.
Welcome to the Thule Realm. Not a state, or even a series of states per se, although many regions are beginning to develop into states or statelike entities. We have a Theocracy over here, a pseudo-feudal regime over there, an empire is taking shape there, a trade-network up here.
This is not a civilization, though arguably the beginnings of civilization are here. If we had to describe the Thule in modern terms, we would call them the last of the Dawn Civilizations, come to stride the world stage.
The Thule, expanding east and west, have ranged across the circumference of the north pole, finally meeting themselves in Siberia. They occupy a landscape vast as a continent, yet strangely uniform. History unites them, or perhaps lack of history - it is barely seven hundred years since they left their homeland, barely four hundred years since they began to farm, less than a hundred years since their expansions east and west finally closed the arctic circle. They remain close to their origins.
There are other factors that bind them together as a people or a culture, if not a state - the uniformity of their arctic landscapes and the lifestyles that landscape demands, the language slowly and relentlessly fracturing into dialects, the shamanic tradition, shared cultural legacies.
The Thule of 1610 are no longer a pure Dawn Civilization. Contact with the dying Norse of Greenland has resulted in an interchange, new ideas, new plants and animals, writing, sails, fish nets and looms have crept into their culture, giving them a leg up. Sporadic contacts at the fringes between Europe and Thule have already begun in Iceland, Greenland and Labrador, and the ripples have begun to flow, even as the Little Ice Age begins to settle in.
But in 1610, the Thule realm is mostly oblivious to Europe, and vice versa. The two realms have fumbled dimly towards each other. But now, the Thule world is going to change, dramatically and irrevocably.
So let’s examine that world, before everything changes.
Thule 1600 - The Coppermine Empire
Not yet truly an Empire, the river basin cultures are a collection of principalities and potentates, amorphous pseudo-states, transient kingdoms and empires, slowly beginning to gel. The next century or two will see massive changes in how they are organized.
If Thule culture has a center, it is arguably in the McKenzie Basin, in the center of the North American Arctic. The region is characterized by mighty rivers, the McKenzie, the Coppermine and others, draining north into the waters of the Canadian Archipelago.
The Thule did not begin in the McKenzie Basin. They came out of Alaska. But McKenzie is with Alaska the most densely populated, with an aggregate population of some two million, and by itself, the richest and most sophisticated of the Thule realms. The river pathways give access to a fertile interior. This is one of the three places that Thule Agriculture began, and it has continued to thrive. The Little Ice Age has made little headway here, causing them only to push further south, slowly displacing the Dene cultures.
The McKenzie Basin, or rather the adjacent Coppermine river basin, was blessed with rich deposits of copper which the Thule there learned to work and then smelt. Inspired by Greenland Iron, their effort to reproduce the metal resulted in Bronze. Now, they sport an indigenous bronze culture. In many ways, it is still a young metallurgical culture. The quantity and quality of Bronze in use in their culture is sparse compared to historical Bronze age cultures. They have, however, identified tin and copper, lead and silver, and even gold. So far, they have little use for gold, it’s inferior to copper and doesn’t make for good bronze, so it hasn’t spread far.
The McKenzie Basin is crossroads for Thule cultures. To the west is Alaska and the Siberians. To the north are the Musk Ox herders of the Islands and the Ellesmere network. To the west is Hudson Bay and Baffin Island.
Almost every cultural innovation or development that has occurred in the Thule Realm has made its way back to the McKenzie Basin, contributing to its development. Domesticated Caribou came from the Hudson Bay region, domesticated Musk Ox came from the northern Islands, Ptarmigan came from Baffin. Plants came from all over - Roseroot from Hudson Bay, Dwarf Fireweed from Ellesmere, Kvan from Greenland, tea from Labrador, Plantain and a new genetic diversity for Claytonia from Siberia. The Norse did not make it, but the Norse exchange was felt. Sheep didn’t make it from Greenland, but turnips and parsnips did, writing was adopted, wool imported. Siberia has contributed effective Caribou saddles, taken from the Evenk.
The McKenzie Thule have more domesticated plants and animals, and more genetic diversity of plants and animals, more and more sophisticated metallurgy, more diversity of tools, skills, occupations, more literacy than any other realm, they are the recipients of a continents worth of experiments and innovations, all filtering back to them, readily embraced, tested, assessed and adopted.
And yet, geography protects them - mountains and barrens and seas guard them. The north and south is too weak to threaten them, Alaska, barred by mountains, always looks to the west, Hudson Bay, separated by barrens, to the East.
For the Thule of McKenzie Basin, the coming of the White Man will be a long delayed affair. The stories will come first, and then the trade goods and epidemics in their equal measure.
Their future holds a succession of devastating plagues, but their populations are healthy and strong, their lands bountiful, they’re well suited to ride out the waves of disease, to salvage what they can, and rebuild quickly. Along with the disease will come Shamanic teachings to cope with the disease, some useless, some valuable, that will make a difference.
Western goods will arrive, indirect trade through elaborate routes. Western ideas will also come. There will be desire, adoption, innovation. Visitors will be things of wonder.
But the armies and conquerers... Those will not have an easy time of it. They will be long delayed, and winter and geography will be their enemy. The epidemics will have come and gone, the McKenzie Thule will have had the chance to rebuild their population.
The long history of indirect and minimal contact may give them the wisdom to cope with the invaders, when they finally show. But sooner or later, the lure of gold will be there. Time is still on the side of the Coppermine Empire, but that time is measured - years, decades, perhaps another century or so.
Of all the North American cultures, the McKenzie Thule are best situated to meet the challenge when it finally comes. Will they?
Not yet truly an Empire, the river basin cultures are a collection of principalities and potentates, amorphous pseudo-states, transient kingdoms and empires, slowly beginning to gel. The next century or two will see massive changes in how they are organized.
If Thule culture has a center, it is arguably in the McKenzie Basin, in the center of the North American Arctic. The region is characterized by mighty rivers, the McKenzie, the Coppermine and others, draining north into the waters of the Canadian Archipelago.
The Thule did not begin in the McKenzie Basin. They came out of Alaska. But McKenzie is with Alaska the most densely populated, with an aggregate population of some two million, and by itself, the richest and most sophisticated of the Thule realms. The river pathways give access to a fertile interior. This is one of the three places that Thule Agriculture began, and it has continued to thrive. The Little Ice Age has made little headway here, causing them only to push further south, slowly displacing the Dene cultures.
The McKenzie Basin, or rather the adjacent Coppermine river basin, was blessed with rich deposits of copper which the Thule there learned to work and then smelt. Inspired by Greenland Iron, their effort to reproduce the metal resulted in Bronze. Now, they sport an indigenous bronze culture. In many ways, it is still a young metallurgical culture. The quantity and quality of Bronze in use in their culture is sparse compared to historical Bronze age cultures. They have, however, identified tin and copper, lead and silver, and even gold. So far, they have little use for gold, it’s inferior to copper and doesn’t make for good bronze, so it hasn’t spread far.
The McKenzie Basin is crossroads for Thule cultures. To the west is Alaska and the Siberians. To the north are the Musk Ox herders of the Islands and the Ellesmere network. To the west is Hudson Bay and Baffin Island.
Almost every cultural innovation or development that has occurred in the Thule Realm has made its way back to the McKenzie Basin, contributing to its development. Domesticated Caribou came from the Hudson Bay region, domesticated Musk Ox came from the northern Islands, Ptarmigan came from Baffin. Plants came from all over - Roseroot from Hudson Bay, Dwarf Fireweed from Ellesmere, Kvan from Greenland, tea from Labrador, Plantain and a new genetic diversity for Claytonia from Siberia. The Norse did not make it, but the Norse exchange was felt. Sheep didn’t make it from Greenland, but turnips and parsnips did, writing was adopted, wool imported. Siberia has contributed effective Caribou saddles, taken from the Evenk.
The McKenzie Thule have more domesticated plants and animals, and more genetic diversity of plants and animals, more and more sophisticated metallurgy, more diversity of tools, skills, occupations, more literacy than any other realm, they are the recipients of a continents worth of experiments and innovations, all filtering back to them, readily embraced, tested, assessed and adopted.
And yet, geography protects them - mountains and barrens and seas guard them. The north and south is too weak to threaten them, Alaska, barred by mountains, always looks to the west, Hudson Bay, separated by barrens, to the East.
For the Thule of McKenzie Basin, the coming of the White Man will be a long delayed affair. The stories will come first, and then the trade goods and epidemics in their equal measure.
Their future holds a succession of devastating plagues, but their populations are healthy and strong, their lands bountiful, they’re well suited to ride out the waves of disease, to salvage what they can, and rebuild quickly. Along with the disease will come Shamanic teachings to cope with the disease, some useless, some valuable, that will make a difference.
Western goods will arrive, indirect trade through elaborate routes. Western ideas will also come. There will be desire, adoption, innovation. Visitors will be things of wonder.
But the armies and conquerers... Those will not have an easy time of it. They will be long delayed, and winter and geography will be their enemy. The epidemics will have come and gone, the McKenzie Thule will have had the chance to rebuild their population.
The long history of indirect and minimal contact may give them the wisdom to cope with the invaders, when they finally show. But sooner or later, the lure of gold will be there. Time is still on the side of the Coppermine Empire, but that time is measured - years, decades, perhaps another century or so.
Of all the North American cultures, the McKenzie Thule are best situated to meet the challenge when it finally comes. Will they?
Thule 1600 - The Musk Ox Herders
The Arctic Islands of the Canadian Archipelago are a frozen dry desert. The Thule were masters at growing crops in some of the most forbidding wastelands on Earth, but here they tried and failed. The land is simply too poor, too dry to sustain intensive agriculture.
The Musk Ox Herders are the descendants of the hunters and gatherers of the original Thule culture, before they started farming. In most places elsewhere, the hunter/gatherers were overwhelmed by Agriculture. Either they started farming themselves, or farmers pushed them out. The farmers came here to the islands, a long time ago. But farming proved difficult and the hunter-gatherers pushed back. In the end, the farmers withdrew, leaving a thin legacy of works. But the hunter-gatherers had by that time adapted, building a lifestyle around an animal that thrived in this empty desert land.
The land use of the Musk Ox herders still draws on the agricultural legacy, however. The elaborate technologies of microclimate engineering, careful landscaping, mound building, collecting water, breaking the winds, conserving heat, carefully replenishing and rebuilding soil are in use. It all take place on an immensely slow scale, accumulating over centuries, the population of draft animals is thin, the human population thinner still. But the labour of draft animals is there, it’s simply a matter of how to deploy it, how to slowly and carefully sculpt this fragile landscape. They’ve been doing it for centuries, left to themselves, they may spend another thousand years and more, turning a desert into a landscape of gardens.
The exquisitely careful, slow incremental reshaping of land is not to feed humans directly for the most part. It’s to feed the musk ox that the herders rely upon, to ensure that each year, there’s just a little more forage, that it’s just a little easier to find, to ensure that good years get better, and bad years aren’t quite so harsh.
The Herders are a people apart. Moving from place to place with their herds in communal bands. They are milk drinkers, they practice a little horticulture, they gather a bit, hunt a bit, they’re wool (qviat spinners), their material culture is sparse as befits nomads, every item, every pound of weight considered carefully, the plenties and pitfalls of vast landscapes are memorized like the back of their hands. Their lives are the rhythms of the beasts, of the seasons of the vast landscape that they move through, of careful changes and works that might take years to see results, generations to pay off fully. It’s a harsh life, but milk and meat are good foundations to build a body on, and constant wandering toughens it. The Herders are known as a large people, stoic, tireless appallingly strong.
And perhaps a little bit stupid, according to the reputation. Their culture is one of small groups, of occasional contacts and meetings, of elaborate politeness and custom, slow and mannered. There’s a patience and a diffidence that is maddening. Those who deal with them learn to tolerate their ways, because while slow to act on offense, their vengeance grinds exceedingly fine.
It’s not clear how many of the Herders there are in their islands. They don’t really see the point of a census. By guesses, there may be a few hundred thousand musk ox. Of the herders, some say fifty thousand, some say one hundred thousand, no one really knows. For the herders, their focus is the ability of the land, will it sustain the animals, will it sustain the men and women.
Population density is managed by sending the young men south to seek their fortunes, usually accompanied by a chosen and well domesticated musk ox or two, and whatever tools they’ve been able to make, or gifts they’ve earned.
Not the daughters though. They stay behind, are married to elders, or perhaps to favoured sons, the ones who will not be set upon the road, or traded to other clans. Among the herders, a man isn’t really a man unless he has two or three wives. A half dozen wives are merely respectable. There are folk tales of a man with a hundred wives, each producing sons and daughters. Many heroes of folklore are attributed as his wandering sons.
It is a well respected tradition, and in spring, the lands are trod by the young men and their beasts, welcome guests in every clan and tribe they visit on their travels, so long as they don’t stay, until finally they make their way to the mainland, a steady trickle of bumpkins and heroes, fortune seekers and wanderers, naive yet gifted.
Their domesticate, the Musk Ox has spread with them, through the McKenzie basin, into Alaska and Hudson Bay, to Siberia and Baffin Island. Generally, they’re seen as inferior to Caribou, but they’ve found their niches among the poor or in harsh regions. This is their great contribution to Thule civilization - heroes and shaggy beasts.
For a long time, the Herders were among the poorest Thule. They never met a Norseman, but the skill and technology of weaving slowly made its way to them. And with that came the first trappings of wealth. Woven qviat came into demand in the south. The Herders had a trade good, something they could use to procure bronze tools, fine wood, leathers, objects practical and magical, to obtain amenities and luxuries. Trade brought more contact, more ideas, considered and percolated slowly through the slow process of the Islands, accepted or rejected or adapted. Literacy proved to be useful, and all over the landscape, rock faces sheltered from the elements are awash with graffiti - instructions, observations, recipes, announcements and warnings. Despite their slow ways, the Herders are cleverer than they appear. This is a thing that only really becomes apparent to their hasty southern cousins once its too late.
Life just keeps getting better. Their qviat, after Roseroot, is the most sought after trade good for the Europeans. Even at the end of their long trading chain, it just gets more and more profitable every year as demand mounts up, as the trading chain eventually starts to grow shorter. The value of the goods they trade, the complexity, will continue to grow. The Herders will not change their lifestyles, but will count themselves as wealthier, accumulating guns and powder, spyglasses and lenses, iron pots and steel knives.
The European plagues and epidemics will have little effect on them. Their population density is thin and their numbers are scattered, which will make transmission difficult. They’re a healthy well fed population, well suited to ride out a pandemic. Their society is one of harems, with lots of breeding females, and eager young males ready to step into the gap. They will be lightly touched and quick to recover. At the worst, in some years, there just won’t be as many young heroes and bumpkins heading south, riding their shaggy beasts.
Their land is harsh, and while they’ve learned to live on it, it’s not welcoming for anyone else. There’s nothing that they have that can be easily taken from them, or that they can be easily displaced from. Like all societies, they have vulnerabilities. But the truth is, that they’re very hard to get too, and all too self sufficient.
The Herders have little regard for politics. If someone comes along, from Hudson Bay, or Coppermine, or Alaska or even France or England, and says ‘now you are part of our Empire’ that’s fine, so long as the visitors come with sufficient gifts, mind their manners, behave like polite guests and don’t become rude in their demands.
If not, well, there’s a sickness that the Herders know well, it’s when an unpleasant person is sleeping and some artery spontaneously opens up and they bleed out without ever waking up. It’s a mysterious thing, the herders acknowledge, best not to dwell on it. A positive attitude is the key to a healthy happy life.
For the Herders, life will keep getting better and better, despite occasional bumps and hiccups. Perhaps in a thousand years we’ll look in on them, living their patient wandering lives, reshaping their lands.
The Arctic Islands of the Canadian Archipelago are a frozen dry desert. The Thule were masters at growing crops in some of the most forbidding wastelands on Earth, but here they tried and failed. The land is simply too poor, too dry to sustain intensive agriculture.
The Musk Ox Herders are the descendants of the hunters and gatherers of the original Thule culture, before they started farming. In most places elsewhere, the hunter/gatherers were overwhelmed by Agriculture. Either they started farming themselves, or farmers pushed them out. The farmers came here to the islands, a long time ago. But farming proved difficult and the hunter-gatherers pushed back. In the end, the farmers withdrew, leaving a thin legacy of works. But the hunter-gatherers had by that time adapted, building a lifestyle around an animal that thrived in this empty desert land.
The land use of the Musk Ox herders still draws on the agricultural legacy, however. The elaborate technologies of microclimate engineering, careful landscaping, mound building, collecting water, breaking the winds, conserving heat, carefully replenishing and rebuilding soil are in use. It all take place on an immensely slow scale, accumulating over centuries, the population of draft animals is thin, the human population thinner still. But the labour of draft animals is there, it’s simply a matter of how to deploy it, how to slowly and carefully sculpt this fragile landscape. They’ve been doing it for centuries, left to themselves, they may spend another thousand years and more, turning a desert into a landscape of gardens.
The exquisitely careful, slow incremental reshaping of land is not to feed humans directly for the most part. It’s to feed the musk ox that the herders rely upon, to ensure that each year, there’s just a little more forage, that it’s just a little easier to find, to ensure that good years get better, and bad years aren’t quite so harsh.
The Herders are a people apart. Moving from place to place with their herds in communal bands. They are milk drinkers, they practice a little horticulture, they gather a bit, hunt a bit, they’re wool (qviat spinners), their material culture is sparse as befits nomads, every item, every pound of weight considered carefully, the plenties and pitfalls of vast landscapes are memorized like the back of their hands. Their lives are the rhythms of the beasts, of the seasons of the vast landscape that they move through, of careful changes and works that might take years to see results, generations to pay off fully. It’s a harsh life, but milk and meat are good foundations to build a body on, and constant wandering toughens it. The Herders are known as a large people, stoic, tireless appallingly strong.
And perhaps a little bit stupid, according to the reputation. Their culture is one of small groups, of occasional contacts and meetings, of elaborate politeness and custom, slow and mannered. There’s a patience and a diffidence that is maddening. Those who deal with them learn to tolerate their ways, because while slow to act on offense, their vengeance grinds exceedingly fine.
It’s not clear how many of the Herders there are in their islands. They don’t really see the point of a census. By guesses, there may be a few hundred thousand musk ox. Of the herders, some say fifty thousand, some say one hundred thousand, no one really knows. For the herders, their focus is the ability of the land, will it sustain the animals, will it sustain the men and women.
Population density is managed by sending the young men south to seek their fortunes, usually accompanied by a chosen and well domesticated musk ox or two, and whatever tools they’ve been able to make, or gifts they’ve earned.
Not the daughters though. They stay behind, are married to elders, or perhaps to favoured sons, the ones who will not be set upon the road, or traded to other clans. Among the herders, a man isn’t really a man unless he has two or three wives. A half dozen wives are merely respectable. There are folk tales of a man with a hundred wives, each producing sons and daughters. Many heroes of folklore are attributed as his wandering sons.
It is a well respected tradition, and in spring, the lands are trod by the young men and their beasts, welcome guests in every clan and tribe they visit on their travels, so long as they don’t stay, until finally they make their way to the mainland, a steady trickle of bumpkins and heroes, fortune seekers and wanderers, naive yet gifted.
Their domesticate, the Musk Ox has spread with them, through the McKenzie basin, into Alaska and Hudson Bay, to Siberia and Baffin Island. Generally, they’re seen as inferior to Caribou, but they’ve found their niches among the poor or in harsh regions. This is their great contribution to Thule civilization - heroes and shaggy beasts.
For a long time, the Herders were among the poorest Thule. They never met a Norseman, but the skill and technology of weaving slowly made its way to them. And with that came the first trappings of wealth. Woven qviat came into demand in the south. The Herders had a trade good, something they could use to procure bronze tools, fine wood, leathers, objects practical and magical, to obtain amenities and luxuries. Trade brought more contact, more ideas, considered and percolated slowly through the slow process of the Islands, accepted or rejected or adapted. Literacy proved to be useful, and all over the landscape, rock faces sheltered from the elements are awash with graffiti - instructions, observations, recipes, announcements and warnings. Despite their slow ways, the Herders are cleverer than they appear. This is a thing that only really becomes apparent to their hasty southern cousins once its too late.
Life just keeps getting better. Their qviat, after Roseroot, is the most sought after trade good for the Europeans. Even at the end of their long trading chain, it just gets more and more profitable every year as demand mounts up, as the trading chain eventually starts to grow shorter. The value of the goods they trade, the complexity, will continue to grow. The Herders will not change their lifestyles, but will count themselves as wealthier, accumulating guns and powder, spyglasses and lenses, iron pots and steel knives.
The European plagues and epidemics will have little effect on them. Their population density is thin and their numbers are scattered, which will make transmission difficult. They’re a healthy well fed population, well suited to ride out a pandemic. Their society is one of harems, with lots of breeding females, and eager young males ready to step into the gap. They will be lightly touched and quick to recover. At the worst, in some years, there just won’t be as many young heroes and bumpkins heading south, riding their shaggy beasts.
Their land is harsh, and while they’ve learned to live on it, it’s not welcoming for anyone else. There’s nothing that they have that can be easily taken from them, or that they can be easily displaced from. Like all societies, they have vulnerabilities. But the truth is, that they’re very hard to get too, and all too self sufficient.
The Herders have little regard for politics. If someone comes along, from Hudson Bay, or Coppermine, or Alaska or even France or England, and says ‘now you are part of our Empire’ that’s fine, so long as the visitors come with sufficient gifts, mind their manners, behave like polite guests and don’t become rude in their demands.
If not, well, there’s a sickness that the Herders know well, it’s when an unpleasant person is sleeping and some artery spontaneously opens up and they bleed out without ever waking up. It’s a mysterious thing, the herders acknowledge, best not to dwell on it. A positive attitude is the key to a healthy happy life.
For the Herders, life will keep getting better and better, despite occasional bumps and hiccups. Perhaps in a thousand years we’ll look in on them, living their patient wandering lives, reshaping their lands.
Thule 1600 - Baffin Island
This was one of the three centers where Thule Agriculture began. But climate and geography are grinding down. There are perhaps three quarters of a million Baffin Islanders.
Baffin island is a land of fjords, of coves and inlets, immense valleys and sheer mountains and cliffs. Travel is over ice, or through choppy waters or mountain passes. Agriculture spread quickly through the fjords and valleys, each a tiny laboratory. The art of mound building and terracing, microclimate engineering developed rapidly here.
But genetic diversity is thin, available varieties of plants and animals were limited, and geographical barriers, the seas, the ice, the remoteness, and the internal geography of mountains and valleys, made new introductions slow. Plants and animals domesticated in Baffin flooded outwards quickly, plants and animals domesticated elsewhere trickled in slowly and haphazardly. Baffin developed more slowly than other heartlands, and its development was uneven.
Economically, Baffin has been advancing. Lacking Iron of its own, it has become the conduit for the benefits of the Norse interchange, for both Greenland Iron from Cape York and Disko Bay, and bog Iron from Labrador. Large areas have adopted both sheep and wool. As Baffin Island moved into a period of wealth and stability, the population grew, warfare became endemic, alliances and treaties, transient kingdoms and empires and confederations rose and fell. The Baffin people became known for war and treachery.
The prosperity of the 1500's, however, is coming to an end. The Little Ice Age is grinding down, and the Baffin peoples are finding it harder and harder to feed their population, even with an accumulated suite of plants and animals from across the arctic. European contact will worsen the situation, already the disruptions and dislocations of disease epidemics in Labrador have choked off the bog Iron production. This was balanced, the value of Greenland iron increased, and this still passed through Baffin. Labrador’s troubles also choked off its wool trade, and Baffin was able to expand to take advantage of that. But any benefits are temporary.
European trade goods will make Baffin’s iron and wool trade irrelevant, the ships will bypass the Islands for the lucrative markets and productivity of Hudson Bay. At the same time that the Little Ice Age grinds down Baffin’s agricultural production, European trade will undermine the economy.
In the last time of hardship, during the medieval glacial period, the Baffin headed south, not as individual heroes, as with the Musk Ox herders, but in groups - families, clans, even whole tribes. But there were fewer Baffin people then, and they had not yet come fully into their gifts of war and treachery. Moving south, the Baffin peoples seek land and power, in Labrador, in Hudson Bay, sometimes in the Coppermine. If an Emperor in Hudson Bay finds the need to buy an army, well, its on its way. The question is how long will they stay bought....
Geography means that the European plagues will strike uneven and fitfully, devastating one valley, leaving another temporarily untouched. Those who remain and those who leave will face different challenges, strive for different opportunities. Some will build their own empires, war upon their neighbors, cleanse and conquer new lands. Others will work with or for the south or europeans, cultivate crops. Anything and everything can happen, but its mostly going to be violent.
But one thing may be said for the Baffin. Many cultures find themselves in traps of their own making, they are ultimately, their own worst enemies. The Baffin are not their own worst enemies.
They’re everyone elses.
This was one of the three centers where Thule Agriculture began. But climate and geography are grinding down. There are perhaps three quarters of a million Baffin Islanders.
Baffin island is a land of fjords, of coves and inlets, immense valleys and sheer mountains and cliffs. Travel is over ice, or through choppy waters or mountain passes. Agriculture spread quickly through the fjords and valleys, each a tiny laboratory. The art of mound building and terracing, microclimate engineering developed rapidly here.
But genetic diversity is thin, available varieties of plants and animals were limited, and geographical barriers, the seas, the ice, the remoteness, and the internal geography of mountains and valleys, made new introductions slow. Plants and animals domesticated in Baffin flooded outwards quickly, plants and animals domesticated elsewhere trickled in slowly and haphazardly. Baffin developed more slowly than other heartlands, and its development was uneven.
Economically, Baffin has been advancing. Lacking Iron of its own, it has become the conduit for the benefits of the Norse interchange, for both Greenland Iron from Cape York and Disko Bay, and bog Iron from Labrador. Large areas have adopted both sheep and wool. As Baffin Island moved into a period of wealth and stability, the population grew, warfare became endemic, alliances and treaties, transient kingdoms and empires and confederations rose and fell. The Baffin people became known for war and treachery.
The prosperity of the 1500's, however, is coming to an end. The Little Ice Age is grinding down, and the Baffin peoples are finding it harder and harder to feed their population, even with an accumulated suite of plants and animals from across the arctic. European contact will worsen the situation, already the disruptions and dislocations of disease epidemics in Labrador have choked off the bog Iron production. This was balanced, the value of Greenland iron increased, and this still passed through Baffin. Labrador’s troubles also choked off its wool trade, and Baffin was able to expand to take advantage of that. But any benefits are temporary.
European trade goods will make Baffin’s iron and wool trade irrelevant, the ships will bypass the Islands for the lucrative markets and productivity of Hudson Bay. At the same time that the Little Ice Age grinds down Baffin’s agricultural production, European trade will undermine the economy.
In the last time of hardship, during the medieval glacial period, the Baffin headed south, not as individual heroes, as with the Musk Ox herders, but in groups - families, clans, even whole tribes. But there were fewer Baffin people then, and they had not yet come fully into their gifts of war and treachery. Moving south, the Baffin peoples seek land and power, in Labrador, in Hudson Bay, sometimes in the Coppermine. If an Emperor in Hudson Bay finds the need to buy an army, well, its on its way. The question is how long will they stay bought....
Geography means that the European plagues will strike uneven and fitfully, devastating one valley, leaving another temporarily untouched. Those who remain and those who leave will face different challenges, strive for different opportunities. Some will build their own empires, war upon their neighbors, cleanse and conquer new lands. Others will work with or for the south or europeans, cultivate crops. Anything and everything can happen, but its mostly going to be violent.
But one thing may be said for the Baffin. Many cultures find themselves in traps of their own making, they are ultimately, their own worst enemies. The Baffin are not their own worst enemies.
They’re everyone elses.
Thule 1600 - Ellesmere
At the top of the world closest to the north pole is Ellesmere Island itself. During the medieval warm period, Thule Agriculture established itself there, crossing back and forth to Greenland.
The medieval glaciation that followed challenged the nascent Thule world, driving many people south. The Ellesmere people were no exception, but their diaspora, earlier and more peacemeal than the later diaspora’s eventually formed the foundation of the Thule’s first great long range organized trading network.
That network might have eventually faded, except for the trade in Greenland Iron and the products and production of the Norse Interchange. Ellesmere Island became the bottleneck for the Greenland trade, for the unique assortment of goods and products that came through. This wealth reinforced social and economic ties. The Ellesmere network diversified, monopolising and manipulating trade goods between regions and over long distances.
The Ellesmere adopted the domesticated Musk Ox from the Herder Islands, employing them into Greenland. Using Musk Ox and Caribou, the Ellesmere pioneered the use of migratory caravans, as well as freighting through seasonal Umiaks. They evolved a network of routes, passages and contacts by which goods could be acquired, transported to the communities Ellesmere, and then transported again outwards, exchanged for other goods.
Rival trade networks emerged at the fringes, such as the timber barons in the southern parts of the Thule reach in Hudson Bay, or the Bronze merchants of the Coppermine river. But the Ellesmere network has remained by far the most far reaching and comprehensive.
During the century long warm period between the medieval glaciation and the little ice age, Ellesmere’s local agricultural and biological productivity grew. Agriculture, herding and sea-mammal management had continually refined and expanded in complexity and sophistication. Warmer weather meant better crops. It meant more population. A generally wealthier, more populated and diverse Thule realm offered more opportunities for trade.
Ellesmere’s wealth and influence continued to grow, even as benefits of the Norse interchange became widespread - as sheep were raised in Baffin and Labrador, and Turnips and Parsnips in McKenzie, and the Musk Ox Herders took up the loom. The Ellesmere, especially, took up literacy and numeracy.
They raised up or sponsored or catered to Shaman’s across the Thule realm, became a center of philosphy and learning. It is an Ellesmere Shaman who first circles the world, in a long journey that takes her from Greenland, to the Sea Thule, to the Siberian Thule, and then Alaska, across McKenzie and up into the Musk Ox herder’s caravans back to Ellesmere.
But now the Little Ice Age is bringing another contraction for agriculture on Ellesmere. There’s a new diaspora taking place, this time through an existing network of contacts, connections and caravans.
At the same time, the Ellesmere face fearsome new challenges. The new European trade that is coming is not coming through Greenland. The Greenland bottleneck is becoming worthless. Increasingly, Ellesmere’s less and less a trading empire centered on a cold island, but an actual network, less a place and more an idea, less a destination, and more an organisation.
The future is no longer among the glaciers and cliffs of the homeland. Rather, the future is out there. The future of trade is on the western shores of Hudson Bay, on the eastern coasts of Baffin Island. The future is that narrow interface between the European ships, and the rest of the Thule World.
As the glaciers expand across their ancient homeland, the Ellesmere mean to own that future, or a piece of it.
They have no choice.
At the top of the world closest to the north pole is Ellesmere Island itself. During the medieval warm period, Thule Agriculture established itself there, crossing back and forth to Greenland.
The medieval glaciation that followed challenged the nascent Thule world, driving many people south. The Ellesmere people were no exception, but their diaspora, earlier and more peacemeal than the later diaspora’s eventually formed the foundation of the Thule’s first great long range organized trading network.
That network might have eventually faded, except for the trade in Greenland Iron and the products and production of the Norse Interchange. Ellesmere Island became the bottleneck for the Greenland trade, for the unique assortment of goods and products that came through. This wealth reinforced social and economic ties. The Ellesmere network diversified, monopolising and manipulating trade goods between regions and over long distances.
The Ellesmere adopted the domesticated Musk Ox from the Herder Islands, employing them into Greenland. Using Musk Ox and Caribou, the Ellesmere pioneered the use of migratory caravans, as well as freighting through seasonal Umiaks. They evolved a network of routes, passages and contacts by which goods could be acquired, transported to the communities Ellesmere, and then transported again outwards, exchanged for other goods.
Rival trade networks emerged at the fringes, such as the timber barons in the southern parts of the Thule reach in Hudson Bay, or the Bronze merchants of the Coppermine river. But the Ellesmere network has remained by far the most far reaching and comprehensive.
During the century long warm period between the medieval glaciation and the little ice age, Ellesmere’s local agricultural and biological productivity grew. Agriculture, herding and sea-mammal management had continually refined and expanded in complexity and sophistication. Warmer weather meant better crops. It meant more population. A generally wealthier, more populated and diverse Thule realm offered more opportunities for trade.
Ellesmere’s wealth and influence continued to grow, even as benefits of the Norse interchange became widespread - as sheep were raised in Baffin and Labrador, and Turnips and Parsnips in McKenzie, and the Musk Ox Herders took up the loom. The Ellesmere, especially, took up literacy and numeracy.
They raised up or sponsored or catered to Shaman’s across the Thule realm, became a center of philosphy and learning. It is an Ellesmere Shaman who first circles the world, in a long journey that takes her from Greenland, to the Sea Thule, to the Siberian Thule, and then Alaska, across McKenzie and up into the Musk Ox herder’s caravans back to Ellesmere.
But now the Little Ice Age is bringing another contraction for agriculture on Ellesmere. There’s a new diaspora taking place, this time through an existing network of contacts, connections and caravans.
At the same time, the Ellesmere face fearsome new challenges. The new European trade that is coming is not coming through Greenland. The Greenland bottleneck is becoming worthless. Increasingly, Ellesmere’s less and less a trading empire centered on a cold island, but an actual network, less a place and more an idea, less a destination, and more an organisation.
The future is no longer among the glaciers and cliffs of the homeland. Rather, the future is out there. The future of trade is on the western shores of Hudson Bay, on the eastern coasts of Baffin Island. The future is that narrow interface between the European ships, and the rest of the Thule World.
As the glaciers expand across their ancient homeland, the Ellesmere mean to own that future, or a piece of it.
They have no choice.
Thule 1600 - Greenland
Theocracy is an ugly word, a word without elegance or grace. In 1600, Manupataq still lives, but she is an ancient woman now, over seventy years of age. Her reputation is immense, across Greenland her followers still pray to her name, pilgrims still travel to her bearing gifts and offerings, her apostles and missionaries still preach her word.
The heady days of fever and fervour are decades in the past. Manupataq’s faith has become formal and systematic, its rituals and articles consolidated and refined by an army of loyal enlightened Shaman’s and acolytes and by fiat of the woman herself.
Manupataq is isolated now, few outside her inner circle see her. The cynical wonder if perhaps age has made her a little mad, if her faculties are failing, they wonder at her memory, at her moods... But they keep their doubts to themselves. They would be wrong, her mind, although still stamped with the apocalyptic trauma of decades past, is clearer than ever. She knows her body is failing her, but she wields power cynically and ruthlessly.
An inner circle grew up around her, at first an aide to her. They helped her run an empire, helped her refine her thoughts and ideas, they contributed to her theology, and created her bureaucracy. But they also bickered and struggled for power, and eventually some of them even tried to usurp her.
There was a time, a generation ago, when her movement might have splintered, faded, when her cult might have withered away. That time is past. She’s pruned her inner circle back quite a bit, anointed a successor and made sure that the successor is both dependent upon her, but will have a smooth path to power. She’s learned much about politics and gamesmanship, over the decades, and has created a secret testament and teachings to guide her successor, and her successor’s successor.
She’s passing into divinity, or as close as a Thule Shaman can come. Her successor will not be divine, but will simply rule by her appointment. It is said that Manupataq has named and appointed all of her successors till the end of time, each new one to be revealed as her will, when the time is right.
Manupataq is long past fearing death, immortality awaits her.
Her rule, her faith, encompasses all of Greenland. At least in theory. She’s strongest in the south, where Theocracy is absolute and embraced.
Further up the Eastern Shore are the lands of the Sea Thule. They’re not so fond of Theocracy, faith is one thing, but her acolytes are rather too demanding of people just trying to get by. They believe and worship, but they’re rather more tolerant of the unfaithful - traders from the north, apostates from the south. Sometimes it’s all too much of a bother, and the best thing to do is to load up your family, or your village and put to sea. There’s always a new land, after all, if the old one is not sufficiently welcoming.
The sailing technology and sea and ice boats of the Sea Thule have been adopted in the south. Once, the only way to the rest of the Thule realm was through Ellesmere. But increasingly, the South Greenland Thule sail back and forth to Labrador and Baffin Island. At first it was missionaries and disciples, but now wood returns to Greenland, and bog iron, bronze and other goods. South Greenland remains self sufficient, Manupataq’s theology is hostile to trade... but it has not quite come to grips with this development, a theological loophole is opening up. Back on the East Coast, a few of the cannier Sea Thule are giving careful consideration to that loophole....
In the far north, Manupataq’s grip is weakest. The Ellesmere trading network, with its musk ox and caribou caravan dominates, monopolising the Iron trade. The Acolytes are more careful here, not as pushy as with the Sea Thule of the coast. Here too, however, Manupataq’s faith is widespread, her Missionaries travel north, to join the caravans, and travel across Ellesmere, into the lands of the Musk Ox herders, and beyond - Baffin, Hudson Bay, McKenzie, Alaska, even Siberia.
Beyond Greenland there is no Theocracy, the societies are far too heterodox and disorganized for any such thing. But the network of disciples and acolytes, people driven by faith and devotion, is almost as widespread as the Ellesmere network. More attenuated, weaker, less effectual, but it’s there. The acolytes and disciples, the good ones, manage just enough civility to ensure their toleration, they manage just enough fire and brimstone to be entertaining. There’s a certain type of personality, there are certain ages, where that apocalyptic brand is pretty compelling.
And even the most independent Shaman, is willing to grant, for Shamanic courtesy if nothing else, that Manupataq’s teachings and medicine are well suited for the kind of supernatural plagues that don’t come around here....
Theocracy is an ugly word, a word without elegance or grace. In 1600, Manupataq still lives, but she is an ancient woman now, over seventy years of age. Her reputation is immense, across Greenland her followers still pray to her name, pilgrims still travel to her bearing gifts and offerings, her apostles and missionaries still preach her word.
The heady days of fever and fervour are decades in the past. Manupataq’s faith has become formal and systematic, its rituals and articles consolidated and refined by an army of loyal enlightened Shaman’s and acolytes and by fiat of the woman herself.
Manupataq is isolated now, few outside her inner circle see her. The cynical wonder if perhaps age has made her a little mad, if her faculties are failing, they wonder at her memory, at her moods... But they keep their doubts to themselves. They would be wrong, her mind, although still stamped with the apocalyptic trauma of decades past, is clearer than ever. She knows her body is failing her, but she wields power cynically and ruthlessly.
An inner circle grew up around her, at first an aide to her. They helped her run an empire, helped her refine her thoughts and ideas, they contributed to her theology, and created her bureaucracy. But they also bickered and struggled for power, and eventually some of them even tried to usurp her.
There was a time, a generation ago, when her movement might have splintered, faded, when her cult might have withered away. That time is past. She’s pruned her inner circle back quite a bit, anointed a successor and made sure that the successor is both dependent upon her, but will have a smooth path to power. She’s learned much about politics and gamesmanship, over the decades, and has created a secret testament and teachings to guide her successor, and her successor’s successor.
She’s passing into divinity, or as close as a Thule Shaman can come. Her successor will not be divine, but will simply rule by her appointment. It is said that Manupataq has named and appointed all of her successors till the end of time, each new one to be revealed as her will, when the time is right.
Manupataq is long past fearing death, immortality awaits her.
Her rule, her faith, encompasses all of Greenland. At least in theory. She’s strongest in the south, where Theocracy is absolute and embraced.
Further up the Eastern Shore are the lands of the Sea Thule. They’re not so fond of Theocracy, faith is one thing, but her acolytes are rather too demanding of people just trying to get by. They believe and worship, but they’re rather more tolerant of the unfaithful - traders from the north, apostates from the south. Sometimes it’s all too much of a bother, and the best thing to do is to load up your family, or your village and put to sea. There’s always a new land, after all, if the old one is not sufficiently welcoming.
The sailing technology and sea and ice boats of the Sea Thule have been adopted in the south. Once, the only way to the rest of the Thule realm was through Ellesmere. But increasingly, the South Greenland Thule sail back and forth to Labrador and Baffin Island. At first it was missionaries and disciples, but now wood returns to Greenland, and bog iron, bronze and other goods. South Greenland remains self sufficient, Manupataq’s theology is hostile to trade... but it has not quite come to grips with this development, a theological loophole is opening up. Back on the East Coast, a few of the cannier Sea Thule are giving careful consideration to that loophole....
In the far north, Manupataq’s grip is weakest. The Ellesmere trading network, with its musk ox and caribou caravan dominates, monopolising the Iron trade. The Acolytes are more careful here, not as pushy as with the Sea Thule of the coast. Here too, however, Manupataq’s faith is widespread, her Missionaries travel north, to join the caravans, and travel across Ellesmere, into the lands of the Musk Ox herders, and beyond - Baffin, Hudson Bay, McKenzie, Alaska, even Siberia.
Beyond Greenland there is no Theocracy, the societies are far too heterodox and disorganized for any such thing. But the network of disciples and acolytes, people driven by faith and devotion, is almost as widespread as the Ellesmere network. More attenuated, weaker, less effectual, but it’s there. The acolytes and disciples, the good ones, manage just enough civility to ensure their toleration, they manage just enough fire and brimstone to be entertaining. There’s a certain type of personality, there are certain ages, where that apocalyptic brand is pretty compelling.
And even the most independent Shaman, is willing to grant, for Shamanic courtesy if nothing else, that Manupataq’s teachings and medicine are well suited for the kind of supernatural plagues that don’t come around here....
Thule 1600 - The Sea Thule
Youngest of the Thule cultures, dating back to around 1450 on the eastern shores of Greenland, the Sea Thule have spread across the frozen ocean, to Svalbard and Iceland, through Franz Josef Land, Novaya and Svernaya Zemyla, to the Talymyr Peninsula.
The Sea Thule are few in numbers, perhaps three hundred thousand in all, scattered across frozen archipelagos. Still, that’s a remarkable number for a people whose history is a bare hundred and fifty years.
Partly it is because the Sea Thule have perfected a sea harvesting lifestyle that allows them to sail frozen oceans and open water with nearly equal ability. Partly it is emigration from Greenland as refugees from the deteriorating north and apostates fleeing Manupataq’s theocracy in the south continually find themselves pushed up or down with no choice but out.
But mostly because the Sea Thule have fallen into the trap of pioneers of virgin landscapes. Virgin landscapes, even cold and frozen ones like Svalbard or Franz Josef are always bountiful lands because no one has been harvesting the resources, they just accumulate. The pioneers find that accumulated bounty and they go through it like a buzz saw - in the case of the islands, it’s a sea harvest, vast numbers of walrus, seal, sea birds, all untouched. An apparently infinite natural wealth triggers runaway population, the desire to grab and grow and fill. This has been the pattern of the Sea Thule.
Usually the pattern leads to a population collapse, hunger and despair as the stored bounty is finally depleted, and the actual sustainable harvest of the lands is found to be much less. The Sea Thule have been avoiding this in two ways.
The first is that, they’ve proven very adaptable in transplanting their cultural production before the crunch comes. Caribou, Ptarmigan, Dogs and Musk Ox are imported, as are domesticated plants from across the Thule range, with a range of varieties available for the harshest conditions. The Sea Thule are the beneficiaries of some of the most sophisticated traditions of microclimate engineering. Even the sea bounty of walrus and seals has the benefit of Thule management traditions and are not utterly depleted. They’re good at outrunning the crash.
The other thing that they do is move. The discoveries of Iceland and Svalbard taught the Sea Thule a lesson. There’s always more land out there somewhere. From Svalbard, they’ve leapt to Franz Josef, from Franz Josef to Severnaya Zemla, from Severnaya Zemla to Novaya Zemla, and from Novaya Zemly to the mainland at Talmry.
Social stresses, confrontations, factionalism that might result in war, results only in one or sometimes both groups leaving, sending out their ice ships. Sometimes coming to settled lands, whereupon either they or the inhabitants leave. Or better, always the promise and lure of new and virgin lands. There’s always more land out there somewhere.
So the Sea Thule culture breeds madly and without restriction. Marriage comes early, and families of a dozen children or more are the norm. Young women are expected to have their first child or two by some high ranking personage as proof of their fertility. Widows deprived of their husbands find their best option to take a role as a second or third wife (if they can’t find an unmarried man) and produce a child or two to consolidate their claim on his loyalty. In some cases, elderly widows past child bearing will have a daughter bear the child and then claim credit. Among the Sea Thule, midwives are almost as important as Captain’s, and that’s saying something.
The epidemics will hit the Sea Thule hard, but their runaway fecundity will be punching right back. They’ll keep on being born faster than they can die, and the big impact is that the Sea Thule will tend to be a race of young men and women.
In 1600, so far as the Sea Thule are concerned, the sky is still the limit. True, things are dangerous on the Greenland coast, what with religious fanatics from the south, and foreign opportunists from across the sea. Sharing Iceland with the Norse is beginning to raise frictions. Svalbard, about to become a European whaling center, is on the cusp of tragedy. The Sea Thule have found their path eastward blocked by the Siberian Thule, whom they recognize and mingle with as cousins, but no matter how family is.... there’s no new lands that way. In Talmyr, they’re beginning to encounter Russian traders and tribute collectors, friendly enough so far, but they keep showing up... The Norwegians, bouyed by the roseroot trade and new crops and population are breaking away from Denmark and intent on founding an empire on their backs.
Nevertheless, they are undaunted. Their homelands in Franz Josef and Severnaya Zemyla, are unassailable, they’ve got a history of outrunning their problems, unlike their European rivals they can sail the winter ice and that same winter is when they rivals are paralyzed and they're making their big moves, and hey... There’s always new lands to be found and settled. So there’s no more expansion eastward? There’s new lands to the south.
True, there are issues in the southern lands. Other people live there, the Sammi, the Nenets, the Komor, but not that many and not that tough...so far. Other people are moving in or already there, the Pomors, the Finns, the Swedes and Norwegians. The Russians and Norwegians lay claim. The cities of Archangel and Mangezaya are struggling for the northern trade. The Dutch, British and perhaps others seem determined to meddle.
But the Sea Thule are optimistic, they have their ships, they have their caribou and musk ox, they have their crops and they have their ferocious cousins from Siberia now.
There’s wondrous opportunities on the northern shores of Norway, on the Kola Peninsula where the Norwegians and Russians are at their far limits, and beneath the peninsula around the White and Barents sea.
Things are going to get very interesting in that part of the world for everyone.
Youngest of the Thule cultures, dating back to around 1450 on the eastern shores of Greenland, the Sea Thule have spread across the frozen ocean, to Svalbard and Iceland, through Franz Josef Land, Novaya and Svernaya Zemyla, to the Talymyr Peninsula.
The Sea Thule are few in numbers, perhaps three hundred thousand in all, scattered across frozen archipelagos. Still, that’s a remarkable number for a people whose history is a bare hundred and fifty years.
Partly it is because the Sea Thule have perfected a sea harvesting lifestyle that allows them to sail frozen oceans and open water with nearly equal ability. Partly it is emigration from Greenland as refugees from the deteriorating north and apostates fleeing Manupataq’s theocracy in the south continually find themselves pushed up or down with no choice but out.
But mostly because the Sea Thule have fallen into the trap of pioneers of virgin landscapes. Virgin landscapes, even cold and frozen ones like Svalbard or Franz Josef are always bountiful lands because no one has been harvesting the resources, they just accumulate. The pioneers find that accumulated bounty and they go through it like a buzz saw - in the case of the islands, it’s a sea harvest, vast numbers of walrus, seal, sea birds, all untouched. An apparently infinite natural wealth triggers runaway population, the desire to grab and grow and fill. This has been the pattern of the Sea Thule.
Usually the pattern leads to a population collapse, hunger and despair as the stored bounty is finally depleted, and the actual sustainable harvest of the lands is found to be much less. The Sea Thule have been avoiding this in two ways.
The first is that, they’ve proven very adaptable in transplanting their cultural production before the crunch comes. Caribou, Ptarmigan, Dogs and Musk Ox are imported, as are domesticated plants from across the Thule range, with a range of varieties available for the harshest conditions. The Sea Thule are the beneficiaries of some of the most sophisticated traditions of microclimate engineering. Even the sea bounty of walrus and seals has the benefit of Thule management traditions and are not utterly depleted. They’re good at outrunning the crash.
The other thing that they do is move. The discoveries of Iceland and Svalbard taught the Sea Thule a lesson. There’s always more land out there somewhere. From Svalbard, they’ve leapt to Franz Josef, from Franz Josef to Severnaya Zemla, from Severnaya Zemla to Novaya Zemla, and from Novaya Zemly to the mainland at Talmry.
Social stresses, confrontations, factionalism that might result in war, results only in one or sometimes both groups leaving, sending out their ice ships. Sometimes coming to settled lands, whereupon either they or the inhabitants leave. Or better, always the promise and lure of new and virgin lands. There’s always more land out there somewhere.
So the Sea Thule culture breeds madly and without restriction. Marriage comes early, and families of a dozen children or more are the norm. Young women are expected to have their first child or two by some high ranking personage as proof of their fertility. Widows deprived of their husbands find their best option to take a role as a second or third wife (if they can’t find an unmarried man) and produce a child or two to consolidate their claim on his loyalty. In some cases, elderly widows past child bearing will have a daughter bear the child and then claim credit. Among the Sea Thule, midwives are almost as important as Captain’s, and that’s saying something.
The epidemics will hit the Sea Thule hard, but their runaway fecundity will be punching right back. They’ll keep on being born faster than they can die, and the big impact is that the Sea Thule will tend to be a race of young men and women.
In 1600, so far as the Sea Thule are concerned, the sky is still the limit. True, things are dangerous on the Greenland coast, what with religious fanatics from the south, and foreign opportunists from across the sea. Sharing Iceland with the Norse is beginning to raise frictions. Svalbard, about to become a European whaling center, is on the cusp of tragedy. The Sea Thule have found their path eastward blocked by the Siberian Thule, whom they recognize and mingle with as cousins, but no matter how family is.... there’s no new lands that way. In Talmyr, they’re beginning to encounter Russian traders and tribute collectors, friendly enough so far, but they keep showing up... The Norwegians, bouyed by the roseroot trade and new crops and population are breaking away from Denmark and intent on founding an empire on their backs.
Nevertheless, they are undaunted. Their homelands in Franz Josef and Severnaya Zemyla, are unassailable, they’ve got a history of outrunning their problems, unlike their European rivals they can sail the winter ice and that same winter is when they rivals are paralyzed and they're making their big moves, and hey... There’s always new lands to be found and settled. So there’s no more expansion eastward? There’s new lands to the south.
True, there are issues in the southern lands. Other people live there, the Sammi, the Nenets, the Komor, but not that many and not that tough...so far. Other people are moving in or already there, the Pomors, the Finns, the Swedes and Norwegians. The Russians and Norwegians lay claim. The cities of Archangel and Mangezaya are struggling for the northern trade. The Dutch, British and perhaps others seem determined to meddle.
But the Sea Thule are optimistic, they have their ships, they have their caribou and musk ox, they have their crops and they have their ferocious cousins from Siberia now.
There’s wondrous opportunities on the northern shores of Norway, on the Kola Peninsula where the Norwegians and Russians are at their far limits, and beneath the peninsula around the White and Barents sea.
Things are going to get very interesting in that part of the world for everyone.
"If not, well, there’s a sickness that the Herders know well, it’s when an unpleasant person is sleeping and some artery spontaneously opens up and they bleed out without ever waking up. It’s a mysterious thing, the herders acknowledge, best not to dwell on it. A positive attitude is the key to a healthy happy life."
Laughed my ass off
Laughed my ass off
Great update; I am loving this timeline! I'm half tempted to send it to some of my former Yup'ik students
Yes. I just found that I couldn't write them all at once. So today hopefully.
Basically, I wanted to do a refresher. Look over the Thule World, see what everyone is doing, who they're doing it too, and how, catch up on the evolving Thule cultures on the verge of massive European contact.
The 1500's have been a period of noodling at the edges. Contacts at the peripheries - on the fringes of Siberia, on the Greenland and Labrador shores, in Iceland, Norway. The 1600's are when contact gets serious, the volume of interaction goes way up, and contact is with the heartlands.
- Status