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

[Falecius]

snip

If the Thule start colonizing Novaja Zemlja around 1575, there's chance they'll meet some Russian sniff-around explorers, fur hunters, tax collectors and such quite soon. The Thule will establish contact (probably not very peaceful) with the local Nenets, and IIRC Russia had started to solidify a sort of claim of suzerainity over their mainland brethren around this time.
Novaja Zemlja is very close to the mainland.
And the guy currently on top is Moscow is not going to take kindly any sort of what he sees as interference into perceived Russian tribute sphere.
Note also that this is the time when trade trough the Arctic began to establish a significant route between Arkhanelsk and Britain...
The funny thing is that in this way, actually the Thule discover Europe (well, sort of) before or simultanously with the European discovery of America...

Also, from Severnaja Zemlja the hop to Taimyr is short, and from there, the Western Thule frontier is not very far...
I'm not sure they can or will colonize Taimyr. Russian encroachment in the area is coming. But they are pretty much explorers, they'd stumble into they kin coming the opposite direction.
I suppose they dialects could even be mutually incomprehensible at this point, or close to, but they'd recognize as "civilized thule" nontheless I think.

 

[Falecius]

In terms of the salient features of the Sea Thule subculture, most of their heritage has been derived from the East Coast of Greenland, where mature Thule culture has established itself.


The Sea Thule of the various island groups maintain contact, mostly along the lines of colonization. Thus Novaya and Severnaya are at the ends of the chain - they only occasionally interact with each other, and mostly interact with Franz Josef. Franz Josef interacts with Novaya, Severnaya and Svalbard. Svalbard interacts with Greenland and Franz Josef.

Contacts are highly ceremonial. Occasionally portions of populations move, but this is rare. Formal marriages between archipelagos are common, and it is considered a mark of status to have a wife from beyond the island - this implies kinship and access to resources beyond the local. Gift giving is the common medium of exchange.

If trade and long range contact are big into their culture... Trade with the Thule on the coast of the Laptev Sea are guaranteed. This would mean an additional source of bronze and iron for Severnaja Zemlja, turning it from extreme periphery to important link in what is now a complete circumpolar chain.

 

[eschaton]

Some cool speculation.

I do want to make clear (since it's unclear to me if you've found this) that even winter sea ice almost never reaches the northern coast of Iceland. The last recorded case of this was 1969. Mind you, ice could have traveled further south during the Little Ice Age, but they'd still probably need some open sea travel to find Iceland.

 

[DG Valdron]

Some cool speculation.

I do want to make clear (since it's unclear to me if you've found this) that even winter sea ice almost never reaches the northern coast of Iceland. The last recorded case of this was 1969. Mind you, ice could have traveled further south during the Little Ice Age, but they'd still probably need some open sea travel to find Iceland.

Well, as I've worked it out, the model is likely that open sea travel, in the form of increasingly strenuous and far reaching whale hunting efforts takes the Thule far enough out to seabirds and remote sightings allow them to zero in on Iceland.

Major colonization efforts - ie, moving numbers of Thule and more particularly, the elements of their cultural package, takes place over the winter across the ice.

Overall, however, you are quite correct. Iceland is in the Gulf stream, so in OTL recent history its unusual for sea ice to reach the northern coast.

On the other hand, conditions seemed to have been fairly different in the Little Ice Age.

The sea ice off Iceland reveals an extraordinary growth in severity, from zero coverage before the year 1200 to eight-week average cover in the 13th century, rising to 40 weeks in the 19th century, and dropping again to eight weeks in the 20th century.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/269574/Holocene-Epoch/70037/Medieval-Cool-Period

There's another reference from Wikipedia, article on the Little Ice Age:

Sea ice surrounding Iceland extended for miles in every direction, closing harbors to shipping. The population of Iceland fell by half, but this was perhaps caused by fluorosis after the eruption of the volcano Laki in 1783.[19] Iceland also suffered failures of cereal crops, and people moved away from a grain-based diet

Most of this is fairly imprecise with respect to dating:

By 1500 AD all grain growth was stopped and henceforth only fishing could be pursued. Even this was driven out further to sea by the huge growth in sea ice.

http://www.ancientdestructions.com/little-ice-age-erratic-climate-changes/

There's also an interesting article suggesting that the Little Ice Age period saw a migration of Arctic foxes to Iceland from places as as far as Greenland, Svalbard and Russia, across sea ice.

http://www.heritagedaily.com/2012/09/little-ice-age-led-to-migration-of-island-hopping-arctic-foxes/

Generally speaking, there's a roughly hundred year warmish period between Medieval Glaciation and the Little Ice Age. The entire sequence is often called the Little Ice Age. But more rigorous types will usually frame the Little Ice Age as between 1550 and 1850.

So overall, around the time that settlements start to happen, Iceland is coming off the relatively warm respite and getting colder rapidly. I'd suggest that its reasonable that the northern shores at least are more and more likely to be locked in sea ice around this time.

 

[DG Valdron]

If trade and long range contact are big into their culture... Trade with the Thule on the coast of the Laptev Sea are guaranteed. This would mean an additional source of bronze and iron for Severnaja Zemlja, turning it from extreme periphery to important link in what is now a complete circumpolar chain.

Yes and no.

More like two extreme peripheries touching. The Sea Thule of Severnaya Zemyla are at one end of a long game of leapfrog. Trade and contact is like an extended game of telephone.

So things like Bronze and Iron moves step by step, but its slow, and only a trickle makes its way all the way to Severnaya. We're talking very small volumes, very high value. If not for ceremonial 'gift giving' Iron and Bronze might be so expensive that it would 'price right out' by the time it got to Severnaya.

There's more in the way of local trade between Severnaya and Franz Josef, and between Franz Josef and other Islands, but this is often about mediating local surpluses and shortages in easily transportable goods.

In the Polynesian diaspora essentially each Island economy was pretty uniform in production and resources. This tended to discourage trade and communication, and the great Polynesian sea voyages slowly came to an end - exploration and colonization was not followed by trade.

Among the Sea Thule, although the subsistence packages are fairly uniform, there's enough distinctiveness in the situations and conditions of the Islands, that there are divergences in specialty or 'tradeables' production, so you've got a trading network establishing itself.

But I have to stress, its not carrying huge volumes as a matter of course. Remember, post-neolithic society.

So there's some likelihood of contact with and awareness of the Laptev Siberian Thule. That will likely translate into ceremonial bride exchanges and marriages, 'gift giving' and there may be some trade or exchange.

But again, the actual volume of material moving is probably not going to be huge. Information, relationships and social ties are the more significant items moving.

One interesting observation - sooner or later, some particularly astute Thule Shaman is going to put together all the stories of far off realms and going to come up with some cosmological notion of the shape of the world... or their part of it.

 

[DG Valdron]

Is there any sort of contact with the Siberian Thule? Resupply settlements along the Laptev coast? Some extra whale-blubber might help Our Boys in Fur as they fight with the Chukchi.

Well actually, by the time they get to the Laptev coast, I think the Siberian Thule are fighting the Yakut.

The Severnaya Zemyla are very close to the Siberian coast, and the region known as the Talmyr Peninsula. It's the northernmost point of Siberia, and according to descriptions, a dry unappealling tundra. Probably some of the more barren land in Siberia, although relatively rich compared to the islands. The Talmyr was the last refuge of Musk Ox in Eurasia, they went extinct there about 2000 years ago, so generally, you know that Musk Ox country is pretty sparse. Musk Ox have been reintroduced to the area by the way, in OTL, and are thriving. The Laptev Siberian Thule might not push into it because its relatively more barren than lands they already control.

So it's almost a given that the Sea Thule will explore and perhaps establish settlements in the Talmyr peninsula and particularly on the coasts. The inhabitants of the Talmyr peninsula are the Nganask, straightforward hunter-gatherers and reindeer hunters, and the Nenet, reindeer hunters and herders.

Neither seem to be nearly as warlike or dangerous as the Yakut, Koryak and Chukchi. So you might see displacement, or possibly cultural fusion with Nenet and Nganask co-existing and being absorbed into Thule culture.

The Sea Thule are different from the Siberian Thule in that they don't have the same warlike tradition. The Siberian Thule crossed the Bering straight to meet a succession of badasses like the Chukchi, Koryak and Yakut, and have fought for just about every inch of land they've taken.

In contrast, the Sea Thule have occupied one empty island after another. They've resolved their worst conflicts by separating, building a new community, and then building 'bridges' back to former enemies and rivals. Their subculture emphasizes co-operative ventures and contact between remote parties. So, there's at least as much of a chance that they'll trade with and incorporate the Nganask and Nenet as kill them or displace them. There could be some interesting outcomes.

The Nenet by the way are closely related to the Finnish Sammi. Their original names for themselves were Samoyed. So it's possible that if Thule cultural traits are incorporated by the Nenet, some of this may move west and the Nenet/Sammi, or at least some of them, may move into the Thule cultural sphere.

Hugging the coast, its about 650 kilometers or 400 miles to the likely furthest extent of Laptev Siberian Thule penetration, and likely its not going to be contested or hostile territory for the Sea Thule. Highly likely that they'll meet.

On the other hand, unlikely that we'll see significant volumes of good like whale blubber. There may be some technological and information exchange.

Expect the 'sea game' of the Siberian Thule to improve dramatically. Better Umiak, more skillful use of the Umiak, faster travel across sea and sea ice, more sea harvest.

 

[DG Valdron]

If the Thule start colonizing Novaja Zemlja around 1575, there's chance they'll meet some Russian sniff-around explorers, fur hunters, tax collectors and such quite soon.

Very likely. It's an inevitable development, the only issue is when. The successful permanent settlements are around 1580, and they're moving south from there. My guess is that they encounter Russians between 1585 and 1595.

The thing is, its not as if they set foot on the island, and the whole thing automatically goes Thule Red on the map.

Initial colonizing groups from Franz Josef Land will be no more than a few dozen or a couple of hundred, tops. There will probably be more. And the population will expand, but it will take time for them to really establish some degree of control or presence over the Novaya. Let's say a generation. And probably another two or three generations after that to really consolidate.

It'll be in the period from 1600 on that the Sea Thule tend to come into their own in terms of reaching their maximum populations and refining their Agricultural/Pastoral/Subsistence packages to their islands.

The Thule will establish contact (probably not very peaceful) with the local Nenets, and IIRC Russia had started to solidify a sort of claim of suzerainity over their mainland brethren around this time.

I'm not sure if the Nenets were occupying Novaya Zemyla. There are references that suggest that the Russians shipped the Nenets up there to consolidate their claim to the Islands against England. They certainly inhabited the region of mainland between Novaya Zemyla and Severnaya Zemyla.

I dunno. The North Island seems pretty difficult. The South Island would probably have been at least seasonally visited by the Nenet accompanying Reindeer migration. So likely, there would have eventually been contact with the Nenet and possibly conflict, as the Sea Thule shifted from subsisting on sea resources to consolidating and expanding land use. Populations of both, however, might be thin enough that they can avoid each other and avoid conflict.... for the time being. On the other hand, as I've noted, the Nenet were not nearly as warlike as the eastern peoples, and there may be significant chances for cultural influence of Thule on the Nenet.

Novaja Zemlja is very close to the mainland.

Correct. The peninsula closest to the southernmost part of Novaya is only 70 kilometers (45 miles) away. Even straight south, its only 180 kilometers (115 miles) to the Mainland. That's a pretty short hop, given the distances that the Sea Thule travel.

And the guy currently on top is Moscow is not going to take kindly any sort of what he sees as interference into perceived Russian tribute sphere.

Would he? Although the Russians were hunting and trading in the area at the time, they didn't establish jurisdiction and dominance until the early 19th century.

There wouldn't be any awareness that this is the cutting edge of a circumpolar civilization. Rather, what the Russians would note is the emergence of handfuls of primitive villages in the middle of nowhere. If they even noted emergence.

If the Thule are reasonably friendly and prepared to trade (and the Russians will have desirable trade goods) they might not care all that much. The Russian presence in the area is primarily commercial, so if the Thule communities are profitable, the Russians are good with that.

And actually, its probably in the interests of the Novaya Sea Thule. The Russian goods they trade for will move from them to Franz Josef and Severnaya Zemyla. Svernaya Zemyla will gateway to the Talmyr peninsula, and then the Laptev Sea Thule. Going the other direction, Franz Josef will connect to Svalbard, and from Svalbard to Greenland.

Trade and communication routes reverse, there's likely further migration to Novaya, and the Novaya Sea Thule become fairly sophisticated and politically and economically astute, working with Russian partners. The Sea Thule overall might stand to profit very well developing a robust trading network based on their interface with the Russians.

It will take several more decades for the Thule to be recognized as a challenge.

Note also that this is the time when trade trough the Arctic began to establish a significant route between Arkhanelsk and Britain...

Novaya was visited by the British and Dutch, searching for the Northwest Passage, in the 16th century, prior to Thule arrival. And this is also the period of rivalry between the British and Russians. There was also prior Norwegian involvement.

And we can expect Russian penetration of Siberia to be not well received by the Novaya Zemyla Sea Thule, and perhaps others of the Sea Thule, when they find that the Russians are dealing directly with their Nenet clients.

So yes, there's potential for things to get interesting... if and when the British and Dutch start to offer better deals, if and when the Norwegians get involved, if and when the Russians start stepping on Sea Thule toes, if and when the Russians start pushing up against the Siberian Thule..

The funny thing is that in this way, actually the Thule discover Europe (well, sort of) before or simultanously with the European discovery of America...

Well, the C-Man is 1492. John Cabot finds continental North America around 1497. Through the 1500's you've got a lot of coastal exploration, and the Spanish are establishing settlements. The Aztecs are overthrown in 1521. It takes into the 1600's for momentum to really pick up in North America.

But in a sense, you're correct. The timing is nearly simultaneous, and the Thule are colonizing their arctic islands faster than the Europeans are establishing presences in North America. It is funny.

Also, from Severnaja Zemlja the hop to Taimyr is short, and from there, the Western Thule frontier is not very far...

Maybe 500 miles or so following the coasts, which is no great challenge for the Sea Thule.

I'm not sure they can or will colonize Taimyr. Russian encroachment in the area is coming.

Not sure. I think its going to be contested. The Thule will establish settlements, make life hard on the locals, and have better land use than either the locals or the Russians. But for the Russians, control of rivers and streams through forts is pretty essential. And all of those rivers and streams are draining into the Arctic.

The Russians will certainly be occupied with the battle with the Sibir Khanate through the later part of the 1500's. But after that? The 1600's will be interesting, 1700's even more so.

But they are pretty much explorers, they'd stumble into they kin coming the opposite direction. I suppose they dialects could even be mutually incomprehensible at this point, or close to, but they'd recognize as "civilized thule" nontheless I think.

Somewhat. The Thule in this timeline are more culturally mobile. There's less isolation. Wandering Shamans, literacy, continuing expansion of technologies and techniques are working against centrifugal forces. The different regions of Thule are mixing more.

The Siberian Thule for instance, have deep deep roots in Alaska. Alaska connects to McKenzie, McKenzie culture links to both Baffin and Hudson Bay, Baffin is tied to Ellesmere, Ellesmere is influential in Greenland, and Greenland is the source of the Sea Thule.

You're probably seeing linguistic divergence on the level of England and Jamaica.

And of course, there's different cultural priorities. The language of the Siberian Thule focuses a lot on war, and they've got a lot of different words for different kinds of ambush. The language of the Sea Thule has a lot of different words for sea and ice conditions.

So in view of each - they talk real funny, but its intelligible if they talk slow and careful. At least at this point in history.

 

[Danbensen]

So in view of each - they talk real funny, but its intelligible if they talk slow and careful. At least at this point in history.

A phonetic written language will also slow language drift way down, at least among literate people. We might see divergence of class dialects.

 

[DG Valdron]

I like it. Sort of Cold Polynesians.

Thank you. Very much so.

Also:
Willem Barentsz: I claim this land in the name of---
Thule: 'Allo! Who is zis?
Barentsz: Damnit! Not you people again. I don't suppose you'd like some civilization.
Thule: No thanks, we've already got one!
Barentsz: What? Are you sure?
Thule: Oh yes, it's verra nice-a!

ROTFL. Holy Grail.

And now for something completely different:
Thule contact with Iceland from the 1480s?

Mostly accumulating occasional glimpses of a very unappealing rocky coast, and perhaps the occasional forced landing with the intent on getting the hell off. There's no realization that its inhabited and no sitings of inhabitants, although there may be casual discussion that this might be the land the Moss-faces came from.

It's another thirty or forty years, before the first colonization efforts come about. This is driven by climate change which is beginning to drive new rounds of displacement wars. Climate change is also bringing more stable sea ice to the northern shores, which allows the 'over the ice' colonization model developed in Svalbard to be used.

Remember that the coastline of Iceland is about 5000 kilometers (about 3500 miles). Thule settlement is in the north and northwest. Most Norse settlement is in the South (although the northern coast does seem to have some settlements) so the two groups may not even encounter each other initially, or contacts may be local and very limited. It may be another generation, say to about 1550 or later before Thule and Norse begin to interact heavily.

So there are about a hundred years between that and "real contact" with Frobisher in 1576. Does anything significant happen in that time?

I would argue yes and yes. Because of this: http://iceland.vefur.is/iceland_history/history.htm

Plague in Iceland in 1400

Well, this is well over a century and more before the Thule show up in Iceland, and even longer before there is significant contact with the Icelandic Norse.

The Plague did sweep through again in 1495, but that's still nearly a generation before the Thule start showing up.

So there won't be much significance. Plague has burned itself out.

Christopher Columbus's visit in 1477 (although it's possible he'll just say the Thule are Siberians or Mongols or something.)

Maybe 40 or 50 years too early.

English contact in the 1500s (perhaps Frobisher meets an alt-Squanto who speaks the language)

Fishing and Piracy. Who knows.

Actually, through the 1500's and 1600's some very interesting things might happen. I'm not at all sure how it will shake out though.

Here's how I see it. The Norse Icelanders are in big trouble in the 1500's. There's been extensive deforestation, which has caused devastating erosion in the thin volcanic soils. The problem has been compounded by overgrazing, particularly by sheep. That's bad enough on its own, but the little ice age is creeping in. Barley no longer grows, other parts of the Norse agricultural package are struggling. Like the Greenlanders, the Icelandic Norse are shifting hard to pastoral herding, and even harder to sea harvest. But even sea harvest is becoming harder as sea ice moves further along the coasts and lasts longer.

On top of that, things are really sucking. English and Barbary pirates raid the coasts. The reformation hits in the middle of the 1500's and suddenly, no one can be catholic, Bishops are being beheaded, and the Dane king is enforcing a new religious regime of Lutheranism. In 1600, the Danes establish a trade monopoly that impoverishes the land for centuries.

Times are really tough, and the Icelanders backs are against the wall. So what happens when the Thule show up?

Not sure. It's possible that the Icelanders decide that the whole thing is their Island and they don't want Skraelings messing up the place. We could see at some point a Norse purging, either by the Icelanders themselves, or by Icelanders and a Dane army/fleet.

Or the Thule might last long enough and become solidly established enough that we might not see a purge but an out and out war between Norse and Thule. Possibly the division of the Island between the two. Or possibly the obliteration of one group by the other.

Or possibly we might see some degree of peaceful coexistence, in which case the Norse interchange that happened in Greenland might start to flow the other way. The Norse package is in trouble, the Thule package is working very well. So with two large stable groups interacting, there's some reasonable chance of the Norse adopting the Thule agricultural/domesticates package.

If that happens, there's some reasonable possibility of the package making its way back to Denmark and Norway, where it would come in very useful - particularly in Norway which has been sent into a tailspin because of the little ice age.

Also, in our post-contact world, in 1757 there's a mass die-off on Iceland, and then again after a volcanic eruption in 1783. This might be a good place to start Thule slavery: a humanitarian effort to save Icelanders by relocating them on Greenland and the Archipelago, where of course they have to work to defray the cost of their transport. The debt is passed to their children.

That's quite interesting.

Anyway, Iceland.... possibilities, no decisions quite yet. Elsewhere in the timeline, we're still in the 1400's. We have to explore the formation of Thule states in the heartlands, the changing roles and evolution of Shamans, the emergence of trading networks. There's a couple of diseases to unveil. And We're overdue for a careful examination of the Siberian Thule.

 

[DG Valdron]

A phonetic written language will also slow language drift way down, at least among literate people. We might see divergence of class dialects.

Quite possible. Or emergence of a 'Shaman standard' dialect. Or even hypothetically, situations where accents and dialects are unintelligible, but they can still communicate by writing.

 

[DG Valdron]

Some Leftover Islands....

Jan Mayen Island, approximately 500 kilometers or 300 miles from the closest point on Greenland. It's about 144 square miles, a quarter covered by glacial ice cap. The tallest point is 7000 feet. It might well be settled by a few families from Greenland and be a nominal part of the Sea Thule subculture.

Then there's Wrangel and the New Siberian Islands: Wrangel Island, 140 km (87 miles) from the Siberian mainland, and the New Siberian Island archipelago, 50 km (30 miles) from the Siberian mainland, are likely to be colonized from the other direction, by Siberian Thule coming over from Alaska.

Wrangel island is about 7,600 km2 (2,900 sq mi) in area. The high points range from 1500 feet to 3500 feet. It consists of a southern coastal plain that is as wide as 15 km (9.3 mi); a central belt of low-relief mountains; and a northern coastal plain that is as wide as 25 km (16 mi). Wrangel was the last refuge of mammoths, until about 3700 years ago, and is home to thriving communities of reintroduced reindeer and musk ox. Historically, reindeer migrated to and from Wrangel, and humans followed them, arriving in time to witness the last of the Mammoths. There are legends of the Yupik fleeing there. In OTL the island was uninhabited in modern times, but almost certainly, it's Thule country in the ATL.

New Siberian Islands are a set of low lying islands about 30,000 square kilometers (11,000 square miles). The tallest point is roughly 1200 feet. Originally they were part of the siberian coast, when rising water levels submerged the surrounding lands. The islands are mostly tundra. The New Siberians are extremely rich in mammoth bones and ivory, extremely well preserved in permafrost. So we'd likely see a significant ivory trade out of them.

Overall, the Islands of the Sea Thule Subculture, not counting the Greenland East Coast comprise approximately 107,000 square miles, of which perhaps a quarter of the territory is habitable and productive. This spreads across an expanse of sea of 2500 kilometers (1600 miles) east to west, and 1300 kilometers (800 miles) north to south - or roughly 3,250,000 square kilometers (1,280,000 square miles) of Arctic ocean. That's in case any of you are into stats like that.

 

[Danbensen]

Quite possible. Or emergence of a 'Shaman standard' dialect. Or even hypothetically, situations where accents and dialects are unintelligible, but they can still communicate by writing.

Hmm. What are the timescales here? And what percentage of people are literate? Contact with other languages might also play a role.

 

[The Sandman]

Once Jan Mayen is discovered, it does have one unique item that might interest the Thule: Beerenberg, the northernmost active volcano on the planet, and at nearly 7500 feet a decent sized mountain in its own right. Assuming the Thule penetration in northern Kamchatka didn't reach any volcanoes, and given that all but one of the Icelandic volcanoes are in regions settled by the Norse, the Thule might not have anything else quite like it.

 

[DG Valdron]

Keep in mind that Grandfather established the first written Thule script, THULE 1-ORIGINAL around 1435-36, and it spread like wildfire after that, by 1451 reaching siberia. THULE 1 variations were widespread by 1490, when THULE 6 was developed. THULE 6 became the dominant script by 1550. Both scripts were in use through the 1500's, both the Sea Thule and Siberian Thule employed THULE 1-SIMPLIFIED.

 

[DG Valdron]

Once Jan Mayen is discovered, it does have one unique item that might interest the Thule: Beerenberg, the northernmost active volcano on the planet, and at nearly 7500 feet a decent sized mountain in its own right. Assuming the Thule penetration in northern Kamchatka didn't reach any volcanoes, and given that all but one of the Icelandic volcanoes are in regions settled by the Norse, the Thule might not have anything else quite like it.

True enough.

 

[Meepy]

http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/explain/atmos_refr/altitudes.html

My completely uneducated guess is that within 100 to 200 kilometers, odds are that you might see it on the horizon.

According to my figuring, a 5000ft tall summit should be visible from 139.4 km away, assuming perfect conditions. This is the arctic however, so I doubt you'd really ever see perfect conditions...

 

[DG Valdron]

According to my figuring, a 5000ft tall summit should be visible from 139.4 km away, assuming perfect conditions. This is the arctic however, so I doubt you'd really ever see perfect conditions...

Excellent.

So let's assume perhaps 100 kilometers visibility.

Thanks for chipping in.

 

[Falecius]

Some Leftover Islands....

Jan Mayen Island, approximately 500 kilometers or 300 miles from the closest point on Greenland. It's about 144 square miles, a quarter covered by glacial ice cap. The tallest point is 7000 feet. It might well be settled by a few families from Greenland and be a nominal part of the Sea Thule subculture.

Then there's Wrangel and the New Siberian Islands: Wrangel Island, 140 km (87 miles) from the Siberian mainland, and the New Siberian Island archipelago, 50 km (30 miles) from the Siberian mainland, are likely to be colonized from the other direction, by Siberian Thule coming over from Alaska.







Overall, the Islands of the Sea Thule Subculture, not counting the Greenland East Coast comprise approximately 107,000 square miles, of which perhaps a quarter of the territory is habitable and productive. This spreads across an expanse of sea of 2500 kilometers (1600 miles) east to west, and 1300 kilometers (800 miles) north to south - or roughly 3,250,000 square kilometers (1,280,000 square miles) of Arctic ocean. That's in case any of you are into stats like that.

What about Bears Island?

 

[Grand Prince Paul II.]

Would the Pomors benefit from the Sea Thule expansion? If yes, how much?

 

[Falecius]

By the way, the Kara Sea is aplenty of smaller islands, most of them are unhabited or only seasonally inhabited by reindeers herders.
For example the Nordenskjold islands or Vize. I assume that the Sea Thule are going to sparsely settle most of them. This would give them a quite wide front of contact with the Mainland.
And, I doubt the Nenets will have much immunization against Bruce or Mona...