Canadian Province of Vinland

Caligo

Banned
This alternate timeline takes a look at if a Norse presence existed in Newfoundland and Labrador up to the modern day.

999 A.D. - 1497 A.D.

Norse settlement of Vinland (Newfoundland) begins. The native Beothuk inhabitants are eventually killed off through disease & warfare. Norse from Vinland begin setting up trading posts and colonies on the Markland coast (Labrador). Deforestation in Greenland spurs a North Atlantic Triangle trade between Greenland, Vinland and Markland. Trees from Markland are sent to Greenland, Settlers from Greenland continually flow to Vinland and fish from Vinland are sent to the Markland colonies. As a result from the Little Ice Age Greenland is eventually abandoned. Greenlanders resettle in Vinland and Markland.

1497 A.D. - 1763 A.D.

John Cabot rediscovers Vinland. He finds a complex fuedal society on the island. France follows England's lead making simular land claims in North America. Vinland finds itself under the domain of England while France controls the Markland coast. The French reinforce the Catholic tradition already practiced in Markland. However, England sucessfully brings the reformation to Vinland.

1763 A.D. - Present

During the 7 Years War Catholic Marklanders fight Protestant Vinlanders in the North Atlantic theatre. Britain inevitably wins the 7 Years War and Markland is consolidated into Vinland as a dependency. Vinland and Markland form the British Dominion or Vinland. The language of Vinland and Markland is today called in English "Canadian Norse." It is a West Scandinavian language with a Vinlandic Dialect and a Marklandic Dialect. The Dominion of Vinland seeking its own independence doesn't join Canadian Confederation. Vinlanders fight for Great Britain during World War I. During the Great Depression independance is put up for a vote. Confederation with Canada wins the referendum as it's seen as the more economically & millitarilly prudent decision. Seeing how the United States occupied Iceland and Greenland during World War II many Vinlanders are weary of American agression if Vinland would vote for Independence. The Dominion of Vinland joins Canada as the Province of Vinland and Markland (Canadian Norse: Vínland ok Myrkland) in 1949. The population of Vinland and Markland today is a little more than 500,000 and Canadian Norse is the official language of the Province.

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[Flag of the British Dominion of Vinland 1907-1980]

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[Flag of the Canadian Province of Vinland and Markland 1980-]

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[Language map of Canada today]

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If the Vinlanders and Marklanders establish permanent colonies and the Greenlanders move there, contact between the New and Old world will not be lost - Greenland was its own Bishopric of Gardar under the Archbishopric of Nidaros/Trondheim. The catholic church kept good tabs on its subjects - pope Nicholas V ordered the Icelandic church officials to rr-establish contact with the Greenlandic church in 1448 (by then the colonies had been abandoned, so the efforts were fruitless).

Dried cod was an excellent good to trade in Europe during the era, sunce it was non-perishable and could be eaten during lent, and the Vinlanders and Marklanders would have ample supplies of it, which would have the Norwegian and later Danish crown keep in control due to profits from that trade - and Vinland and Markland would most likely follow suit with Iceland ans go protestant when Denmark-Noreay does.

Unless the colony is list to France or England in a war, I don't see Denmark-Norway relinquishing it.
 
Why wouldn't they settle further inland or send ships back to Europe? Exponential population growth is a thing, just ask Iceland.
 

Caligo

Banned
@von Adler You're right that contact between Vinland and at least Scandinavia would remain much later. However the Little Ice Age caused an increase in sea ice which cut trade off between Norway and Greenland. Contact would be completely cutoff around the beginning of the 15th century. Contact would be reestablished by the English & French by the late 15th century so there would only be about a generation of no contact. Norway was politically pretty weak in the late 15th century. They would have been in no position to press land claims against the English or French. Even if they did it would have been like New Sweden or New Netherlands. The English would one day just decide to blockade their ports and annex the colony

@metalinvader665 Trade was always important to Norse societies. The North Atlantic Trade network between Greenland, Markland, Vinland, Iceland and even Norway would have drawn colonies to coastal regions with few prior inhabitants. Sure they would have gone on raiding parties down the St. Lawrence but Vinland would not have had the manpower or infrastructure to mount a colonizing effort into North America proper. They would have run into the Iroquis Confederation at the mouth of the St. Lawrence which would have been a worthy adversary for the Norse. Keep in mind that these norse wouldnt have had firearms like the French or English. Iceland today has a population of 300,000 that's hardly exponential growth. Vinland in the 12th century wouldn't have had any more than a few thousand people living there.
 
Maybe it is still early in the morning, but with this propposed timeline, what actually changes that reflects differently today in Newfoundland? I am good with there being a third language in Canada; but what is different economically? The fisheries would still implode, there would still be the boom and bust of the offshore energy industry. The Irish heritage influence would be less, but still a part of Newfoundland culture. St. John's would still be a coloful little town where it rains and snows nine months of the year.
 
@von Adler You're right that contact between Vinland and at least Scandinavia would remain much later. However the Little Ice Age caused an increase in sea ice which cut trade off between Norway and Greenland. Contact would be completely cutoff around the beginning of the 15th century. Contact would be reestablished by the English & French by the late 15th century so there would only be about a generation of no contact. Norway was politically pretty weak in the late 15th century. They would have been in no position to press land claims against the English or French. Even if they did it would have been like New Sweden or New Netherlands. The English would one day just decide to blockade their ports and annex the colony

@metalinvader665 Trade was always important to Norse societies. The North Atlantic Trade network between Greenland, Markland, Vinland, Iceland and even Norway would have drawn colonies to coastal regions with few prior inhabitants. Sure they would have gone on raiding parties down the St. Lawrence but Vinland would not have had the manpower or infrastructure to mount a colonizing effort into North America proper. They would have run into the Iroquis Confederation at the mouth of the St. Lawrence which would have been a worthy adversary for the Norse. Keep in mind that these norse wouldnt have had firearms like the French or English. Iceland today has a population of 300,000 that's hardly exponential growth. Vinland in the 12th century wouldn't have had any more than a few thousand people living there.

The Greenlanders continued to sail to Markland for lumber and as late as 1347 a Greenlandic ship loaded with lumber from Markland landed in Iceland after being blown off course by a storm. The little ice age did not prevent travel in Summer between Iceland and Greenland and Greenland and Markland.

A settled Markland will mean that both the church and the crown have a vested interest in keeping up contact for tithe and taxes, especially if the colony starts export dried cod from the New Foundland massive fish shoals (which it is bound to do, it was Norway's main medieval export good).

The Greenland colony was most likely abandoned due to the main trade good (walrus tusks) dropping in demand (since Venice started importing ivory from the islamic world despite a papal ban), increasing cold climate and competition with the inuits advancing from the north over the best hunting ground. Most likely the colonists up and left for Iceland and Norway, since the plague had freed up a lot of land that was far better than Greenland.
 

Caligo

Banned
@Musadutoe yea you're right it wouldn't be too different. Perhaps Irish colonists would come to what we know as the Avalon Penninsula creating a hybrid Celto-Norse culture though.
 
A PoD that far back pretty much guarantees that nothing we'd recognize as Canada would exist.

Also, the population is likely to grow at about 3% a year from natural increase, as the US colonies did, which works out to doubling every 25 years or so.

Assume founding population of 1000, by 1100, they'll be 16,000, by 1200 256,000. By 1400, 64,000,000. By that point they've probably settled all of North America, preventing any English or French colonization.
 
Remember that, this early, corn (maize) hadn't reached this far north, and the first fully agricultural peoples they'll encounter will likely be the Mississippians, or possibly some group down in Georgia, say.

Certainly, some of the locals could pick up European grain cultivation, animal husbandry, and iron working. But, starting from a non-sedentary base, they're just not going to be as good at it as the Vinlanders. My guess is that many pack up and leave, heading west, to avoid the competition from the Vinlanders, pushing other tribes before them.

At a wild guess, domestic animals, including draft animals, with their hides, wool and manure, together with leguminous crops probably rescue the Mississippians from exhausting their soils. Thus providing the first real check that the Vinlanders receive. Flax for linen clothing will reduce the demand for leather, too, anywhere north of where cotton grows.

So, by ~1400 or so, you're likely to see 1) Vinlanders covering much of southern *Ontario and *Quebec, the *Atlantic provinces, the Eastern Seaboard down to say Virginia.

Mississippians, only marginally less tech advanced, will control basically the Mississippi drainage basin.

The prairies will be horse nomads (Plains Micmac, anyone), and agriculture will sputter anywhere the horse nomads reach.

Meanwhile, in Mesoamerica they will also have adopted iron and domestic animals - although the grains would be largely redundant.

The West Coast? Who knows? They'll have iron, horses and sheep, surely.

The point is. Nothing even vaguely resembling the US or Canada can possibly develop in this TL.
 
A PoD that far back pretty much guarantees that nothing we'd recognize as Canada would exist.

Also, the population is likely to grow at about 3% a year from natural increase, as the US colonies did, which works out to doubling every 25 years or so.

Assume founding population of 1000, by 1100, they'll be 16,000, by 1200 256,000. By 1400, 64,000,000. By that point they've probably settled all of North America, preventing any English or French colonization.

Though the US colonies benefitted from constant immigration, unlike Vinland (even if there is one time settlement from Greenland).
 
Though the US colonies benefitted from constant immigration, unlike Vinland (even if there is one time settlement from Greenland).
Irrelevant to the discussion. They grew at 3% from NATURAL INCREASE. Immigration was extra. Also, there was very little immigration, relatively, from the Revolution to about 1840. The US as an immigrant nation is largely post-steamship.
 

Caligo

Banned
Assume founding population of 1000, by 1100, they'll be 16,000, by 1200 256,000. By 1400, 64,000,000. By that point they've probably settled all of North America, preventing any English or French colonization.

Ridiculous. The population of Europe in 1400 was only 78 million. It's foolish to apply the population growth of the American colonies over a 100 year span to 500 year in Vinland which had a different available technologies and climate. Iceland was settled in 874. By this logic Iceland should have a population of 1,000,000,000,000,000 people.
 
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@Musadutoe yea you're right it wouldn't be too different. Perhaps Irish colonists would come to what we know as the Avalon Penninsula creating a hybrid Celto-Norse culture though.

@Galigo, having been to both St. Johns, NL and Bergen, Norway, i would say that the Celto-Norse culture already exists in St. Johns.
 
@von Adler You're right that contact between Vinland and at least Scandinavia would remain much later. However the Little Ice Age caused an increase in sea ice which cut trade off between Norway and Greenland. Contact would be completely cutoff around the beginning of the 15th century. Contact would be reestablished by the English & French by the late 15th century so there would only be about a generation of no contact. Norway was politically pretty weak in the late 15th century. They would have been in no position to press land claims against the English or French. Even if they did it would have been like New Sweden or New Netherlands. The English would one day just decide to blockade their ports and annex the colony

@metalinvader665 Trade was always important to Norse societies. The North Atlantic Trade network between Greenland, Markland, Vinland, Iceland and even Norway would have drawn colonies to coastal regions with few prior inhabitants. Sure they would have gone on raiding parties down the St. Lawrence but Vinland would not have had the manpower or infrastructure to mount a colonizing effort into North America proper.
They would've had the manpower easily because Vinland can support tens of thousands of people and will fill up in a few generations. In the early second millennia, that's probably about the total population of that entire area in natives.

You don't need any infrastructure either, because the Norse can already build ships and houses in marginal conditions, as well as identify and harvest bog iron. A few hundred Norse can just up and leave if they don't like Vinland, which is the story of many Norse settlements.

They would have run into the Iroquis Confederation at the mouth of the St. Lawrence which would have been a worthy adversary for the Norse. Keep in mind that these norse wouldnt have had firearms like the French or English. Iceland today has a population of 300,000 that's hardly exponential growth. Vinland in the 12th century wouldn't have had any more than a few thousand people living there.
Iroquois didn't form for another few centuries after Vinland was founded, and in any case, won't be encountered in the same state it was OTL. The lack of firearms won't be too big of a deal, not when the Norse can outbreed the natives and eventually will have disease on their side.

Let's assume Vinland starts with 1,500 people in 1020 AD. Assuming a conservative doubling time of 50 years (about half that of OTL Maritimes and New England in the 18th century) than that's 12,000 people from natural growth alone by 1170. At the start of the Little Ice Age in the mid-14th century that's over 100,000 people, which is easily the carrying capacity of premodern Newfoundland. Rather than starve on their increasingly environmentally challenged island, they'd flow into the lands south of them with numbers guaranteeing their victory. By that point there's likely been some epidemics decimating the locals too.


In premodern times, population will exponentially grow until it hits carrying capacity. When it did in Iceland, the population either left (back to Scandinavia, to Greenland) or stayed and died, where after famines/volcanoes/plagues, it once again grew back exponentially.

Vinland can easily support 50-100,000 people, and doesn't have nearly the harsh conditions that Iceland does. It's neighbors are hunter-gatherers down to at least southern New England sitting on even nicer land than Vinland. All you need is a single dispute and one guy takes his family and followers to take their chances in the Skraeling's country, and if they number a few hundred, will begin the process of displacing/murdering the natives with their superior technology and eventually diseases. And then the population exponentially grows and we repeat the cycle.
Ridiculous. The population of Europe in 1400 was only 78 million. It's foolish to apply the population growth of the American colonies over a 100 year span to 500 year in Vinland which had a different available technologies and climate. Iceland was settled in 874. By this logic Iceland should have a population of 1,000,000,000,000,000 people.
That's not how demographics work. What technologies relevant to population growth do the Vinlanders not have which 18th century Anglo-Americans do? Their medical skills are piss poor by modern standards, and to make a living farming, they'll need lots of extra farm labor which means they'll have huge families. When those children grow up, they'll have lots of land they'll want for themselves, and that land will be available. Vinland's climate isn't too much worse than New England or the Maritimes, especially since this is Medieval Warm Period Newfoundland vs Little Ice Age New England.
 
Why on Earth are people restricting themselves to Newfoundland?
If the settlement thrives, they WILL expand, probably first the Maritimes, then the St. Laurence valley, then down into New England.
 
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