AHC: Russian Canada

With a POD of 1492, have Russia colonize all or most of what is modern-day Canada. Bonus points for having Soviet Canuckistan if butterflies allow.
 
Okay, Ivan the Terrible has a successful reign in Russia and has a better heir than Fyodor, be warned I'm going down a gamut of potential POD's.

Be it he doesn't bring Dimitry with him to the trip to the monastery causing the death of his first son,doesn't kill his second son Ivan Ivanovich, his third son Fyodor turns out better, his 4th son Vasily survives infancy and beyond, of Fyodor dies and Ivan's last son Dimitry survives. Give or take the Livonian War being won somehow,maybe no Oprichnina or sack of Moscow to fuck up the country would be nice too when Ivan dies there's at least a capable heir. No time of troubles and presumably nothing more than the occasional with Poland-Lithuania Russia decides to go eastward and with more focus doing so, then Europe. Alaska goes much smoother and maybe Russian colonies expand into the western half of Canada at least.

Sorry if it's a bit complex at first.
 
You don't need much effort to have Russia settle all the north american pacific coast up to California included.

You could have the golden horde crumble a century earlier than OTL so that Russia's eastern expansion beings It much earlier on the pacific coast. Imagine russian ships going to north America both from Mourmansk and Kamchatka as early as in the 1520´s. They settle both Quebec and Alaska some 3 generations before french and english settlers arrived OTL. And then they push along the coasts and inside the continent.

And by 1800 you have the superpower of the north.
 
Out, vile POD! Vade retro, Satana!

I doubt Russia goes far past the Great Plains. What's there for them? If anything they'd continue down the Pacific coast; the land's better. There really isn't much valuable on the steppes or the tundra.
 
Out, vile POD! Vade retro, Satana!

I doubt Russia goes far past the Great Plains. What's there for them? If anything they'd continue down the Pacific coast; the land's better. There really isn't much valuable on the steppes or the tundra.
Didn't stop them from taking Siberia, now, did it? :)
More seriously, Russia of all countries, is the last to discount steppe and tundra.

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Getting settlers all the way to the Pacific Coast, firstly, then across the whole Pacific Ocean, before you can even start settlement? There's a reason why there was so little Russian settlement in Alaska.

Getting enough settlement to take the Pacific coast would be ... really tough.
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PoD. The Russian Tsar (possibly an ATL one), hires Trevithik or Stephenson and starts building RRs in Russia, realizing the incredible transportation problem Russia has, and the advantages of RRs. By the 1840s, rail is creeping east, aiding the Russian hold on the steppes. Once the area that OTL Vladivostok is on is ceded to the Russians (probably about the same time as OTL), rail construction starts, heading west from *Vladivostok. Once the TSR is finished (let's say 1880 or so).

Nope. Not going to work. BC's already in Canada before any believable TSR can be built.
 
Didn't stop them from taking Siberia, now, did it?
Siberia's easy for Russia. There's no ocean in the way and they can use all that extra land for the fur trade.

If they want to colonize North America, they need to build thousands of kilometres of new infrastructure; marching over the Bering on a horse every time isn't a long-term solution to keeping a colony supplied. Either you've got to freight supplies through Siberia to a Pacific port and ship them across the ocean, then inland into the North American tundra, or you're walking all the way to Moosonee.

Siberia's at least on the same land mass. North America means shipping supplies to colonies three-quarters of the way around the world. The expense alone would make it a stupid decision.
 
Siberia's easy for Russia. There's no ocean in the way and they can use all that extra land for the fur trade.

If they want to colonize North America, they need to build thousands of kilometres of new infrastructure; marching over the Bering on a horse every time isn't a long-term solution to keeping a colony supplied. Either you've got to freight supplies through Siberia to a Pacific port and ship them across the ocean, then inland into the North American tundra, or you're walking all the way to Moosonee.

Siberia's at least on the same land mass. North America means shipping supplies to colonies three-quarters of the way around the world. The expense alone would make it a stupid decision.

And don't forget. No one else is colonizing Siberia, and those who can couldn't care less about it. In North America, they'll run headlong into competition with the British and then the United States.
 
Uhm have Russia be more Europe focused earlier and build a Baltic port. Then use that to reach eastern Canada?
 
And don't forget. No one else is colonizing Siberia, and those who can couldn't care less about it. In North America, they'll run headlong into competition with the British and then the United States.

Not so true this one. Russia had to beat off English, Dutch, Uzbek, Ottoman, Mongol and Chinese competition to claim Siberia.

Furs were valuable back then, and the monopolization of the fur trade into Europe took a major effort by the Russians (and one which paid off quite handsomely).

Personally, I think the best chance of meeting the challenge isn't to go East, but to go West. Say by having the Pomors develop better Arctic adaption tech and spread along the then sparsely populated North Scandinavian coast then colonizing subarctic islands like Svalbard, Iceland and Greenland on the way to North America - as technology improves as the Russian government realizes there are furs over in North America as well, troops, governors and official colonists flow West as well. Fur wars happen and, through luck and prolific colonists, Russia ends up in possession of Canada - becoming the first and only circumpolar empire.

fasquardon
 

raharris1973

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Russia had to beat off English, Dutch, in Siberia

Really? Interesting. Would love to see more about it.

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Furs were valuable back then, and the monopolization of the fur trade into Europe took a major effort by the Russians (and one which paid off quite handsomely).

I was thinking along the same lines, Russia decides it want to control *all* the furs. It cannot succeed in that, but can go circumpolar.

POD- Grossiliers and Radisson, two French fur trappers who pitched the idea exploiting the fur trade out of Hudson Bay, and who went first to France and then to Britain to do business, in the late 1660s, are instead killed of by the elements, disease or Amerindians before thoroughly exploring the route and delivering their sales pitch to anyone.

European exploitation of Hudson's Bay is delayed by a generation or generation and a half.
By 1700, some later French trappers most likely scout out the area's fur trade. Like OTL's G&R, the French in Montreal are uninterested in competing with their own, more southerly fur enterprises. Going back to Europe to plead their case and seek sponsorship, they go, probably to Paris first, but then possibly to Amsterdam. There they end up meeting some Russians, maybe even Peter himself, and he decides to give them backing.

Russian efforts in Hudson Bay predate those in Alaska by a bit, starting in 1700 or so. They gradually expand out of the Bay into the watershed during the 1700s.

The Russians could well lose the colony several times, or permanently. But, just putting a butterfly net over everything and presuming a similar pattern of 18th century wars, Britain is on Russia's side or not at war with Russia until the 7 Years War, so it is not grabbing the space in that time. Even in the 7 Years War the Russian colony may survive, either because it is so far from higher priority theaters, or Russia negotiates reinstatement of her enterprise as a price of dropping out of the pro-French coalition in 1762.

So, this can net Russia all of western and northern Canada, leaving only the St. Lawrence watershed, Labrador and the Maritimes.
 
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