Other Norse Colonies

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
Speaking of Christians, does anyone know if any Norse went prostelizing? From memory I think it was early Irish and Anglo-Saxons that went to Scandinavia converting people, but I don't recall Scandinavias going it themselves. Well, not until the conquests of Finland, perhaps. Lot of implications for it being far from anyone under the aegis of Rome. Maybe local strains of Christianity stick around over there? Might also have a bit of horse eating, a la Iceland, though that would imply them having managed to bring horses over and waste them. Maybe Shetland Ponies?

All theories of Norse colonisation in the Americas require both sheep and horses, I'd say. I don't think they can survive on NF without that part of their agricultural package.
 
@Revachah After doing some research and getting various scholarly opinions, I also came to believe that sustained Vinland was ASB. I also find the constant Vinland threads that tread over the same ground again and again fairly tiresome...which is why I generally don't post in them. If you really want to convince people of the ASB quality of sustained Vinland, probably best to make a new thread where your arguments can be fully laid out.

In this thread, why not expand on your ideas for a Norse Madeira? I'm curious as to how you'd get them there given OTL lack of interest, distance, peripherality, worse sailing technology, etc
 
I think the White Sea region (Bjarmaland) did hold the potential to be colonized by the Norse, the Russians only colonized the region relative late, so if Norwegian refugees from the Norwegian unification had decided to settle in that region, it could have ended up a Scandinavian speaking region.

My sister married a Bjarmlander.

In 1240, Bjarmlaners displaced from their own land was given land in a local fjord by the King, Håkon the IV. The descendants still have a faint non-Norwegian look. My sister married one of them.

Not too uncommon of course, Jared Diamond's Collapse said they stopped eating it in Greenland, but I don't see that as an issue here.

Jared Diamond should not be regarded as someone who knows what he is talking about, at least in this area.
 
A modest Norse population may introduce European diseases, but without a very large population bringing technology in wholesale, you're going to see the settlers - maybe a few hundred - beginning to live in ways suited to their environment. They may not become culturally Beothuk, but they'll probably start fishing for cod, trapping the auk, building with birch and probably adopting some of the Beothuk tricks for managing local wildlife, edible plants and fish stocks.

I have some doubts about that. The Norse were quick integrators in more complex societal systems, but didn't show any interest in integrating with hunter-gatherers. The Greenland Norse do not seem to have adopted anything from the Inuit. And local to me, the Norse and Saami have been on a time-share of territory for millennia. Warmer climate, Norse agricultural package got more successful and the Norse expanded, cooler climate, Saami pastoralists did better and expanded back. This went on for millennia without the Norse adopting Saami lifestyles or mixing much.

I am a bit uncertain as to whether they would integrate with the mainland populations, with more complex political systems, and greater populations.

As for fishing, the Norse were quite, quite good at the cod fishing, it had been a staple export from Norway to the UK for centuries as stockfish. And they'd be next to the Grand Banks. The reason the Beothuk had much lower population density than the Norse is that they didn't have the variety or efficiency of food production strategies the Norse had.

They may not even take up farming; Newfoundland's not exactly known for its arable land. Any Nordic settlement there will have to deal with joyous things like freezing rain, short summers, Wreckhouse winds and a whole bunch of things that make the Canadian Maritimes a lot less hospitable than, say, Ireland or England. They could survive there - hell, they did it with Iceland - but they'd adapt to the environment in predictable ways based on their ability to survive off the land. Even if they don't paint themselves and their huts with ochre or speak an Innu-derived language, their ways will become different and somewhat Beothuk-ish.

The Norse made a very determined attempt to farm barley on Greenland. For centuries. While Newfoundland may not look too inviting by the standards of Norse from the British Isles, it probably looked like Vanaheim compared to Greenland.

On another note, I am uncertain what the status of agriculture, three sisters complex etc was in the northeast of the US around 1000 AD ? I know it was well established 500-600 years later, but 500 years was just as long a time then as it is now. If it followed the normal pattern, the speed of spread would slow as you got further north and the climate cooled. Had it arrived at the time?
 
All theories of Norse colonisation in the Americas require both sheep and horses, I'd say. I don't think they can survive on NF without that part of their agricultural package.

The food package of the Norse in Greenland included barley corn, angelica, flax, sheep, pigs and cattle as part of their farming. In addition they harvested berries and dulse, and hunted caribou and seals. They seemed to have been rather skilled conservators of seal populations. They also ate mussels and probably a lot of fish.
 
As for fishing, the Norse were quite, quite good at the cod fishing, it had been a staple export from Norway to the UK for centuries as stockfish. And they'd be next to the Grand Banks. The reason the Beothuk had much lower population density than the Norse is that they didn't have the variety or efficiency of food production strategies the Norse had.


The Norse made a very determined attempt to farm barley on Greenland. For centuries. While Newfoundland may not look too inviting by the standards of Norse from the British Isles, it probably looked like Vanaheim compared to Greenland.
Some trade opportunities. Though there would need to be a fair deal of ceramics or glass for bottling, I think they could still produce mead and beer on the local levels. If they have farms dotted over the coast that locals don't want to go to the bother of using themselves, they might be able to trade alcoholic drinks in exchange for other goods. Not going with any stereotypes of Natives and alcohol, it simply tended to Ben enjoyed by many. Making trade around harvests so that the Native tribes have something extra to celebrate with should make the Norse tolerable enough. Wondering if dried cod would be popular inland or if they would prefer fresh fish. Well, it might not be the most luxurious of exports, but dried cod should be a decent export to Europe, when the time comes for greater contact.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
The food package of the Norse in Greenland included barley corn, angelica, flax, sheep, pigs and cattle as part of their farming. In addition they harvested berries and dulse, and hunted caribou and seals. They seemed to have been rather skilled conservators of seal populations. They also ate mussels and probably a lot of fish.

Yeah, but I still think they need ALL of that package to survive long term. Without sheep they have no wool, big disadvantage, and sheep do for milk as well. The ones they can perhaps do without is pigs or cows, though not both.
 
Moving away from Vinland for a bit, let's focus on the places far closer. The Baltic.

I know Denmark temporarily controlled parts of the Baltic during the Northern Crusades, and Sweden had times too. However all were largely short lived, to the best of my knowledge. Was there ever a possibility of an actual stable 'Norse' country that could have been created on the Baltic with long term success? How fierce was the resistance of the Baltic tribes, and there population density to allow strong resistance to any ambitious Norse colonization attempts?

Assuming it takes Russia as long to conquer the region as it took Russia to conquer Finland, the Norse (Danish/Swedes) would be at least as successful there as they were in Finland. You could maybe have the Estonian islands end up majority or even entirely Norse speaking in parallel to Åland. The rest of Estonia would have to be like Finland, though. You'd need a very weak national revival of Estonian culture (or no nationalism in general), very successful imposition of the standard (non-Finnic) language, and most importantly, don't let a foreign country take over the place. Even then I don't know if you'd kill the Estonian language to the degree the English killed Welsh or the French killed Occitan.

I'm not sure if the Beothuk are actually suicidal; they lived in groups of probably fifty or so, including women and children.

If a bunch of farming Norsemen takes over a small bite of their territory, they would most likely just move a bit away rather than YOLO suicide.

Until the Norse want more land and take another bite of their territory, of course. It's the age-old conflict between agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers, and that's why I said that if the Norse can establish a thriving settlement and not be driven off within the first ten years or so, the Beothuk aren't ever going to be able to dislodge them.
 
Have a large group flee en masse during a Black Death/major plague or severe famine. Large numbers flee to the supposed Vinland and colonize up and down the Eastern Seaboard as a result with larger kingdoms at Delmarva and Long Island. Newfoundland becomes entirely Viking within a decade and though not as severe as the Spanish conquests death still makes its way throughout the New World. But without the famines or severe winters and with a few good years of various crops natural increase brings about dozens of distinct settlements and even a few small kingdoms by the end of the century. Keep them there as farmers etc. and by the time Europe (re?)discovers this they might be in fot a shock
 
Well by the time of the Black Death, there wouldn't be much longer until other Europeans visited them. And wouldn't these settlements themselves want to visit Europe? Europeans would be investigating them, considering Didrik Pining and Hans Pothorst's visit to Greenland--it isn't unreasonable Denmark wants to know what's going on with their far-flung colonies and would send people like Pining and Pothorst over. Later Danes visited Greenland because they were worried any survivors hadn't heard about the Reformation yet and were still Catholics.

But the big problem is, why go to Vinland/North America when you have a comfy place like Iceland to flee to? Clearly most Greenlanders didn't want to go to the place where they occasionally gathered wood when conditions got bad in Greenland in the 14th/15th century--they went back to Iceland, died in Greenland, or joined Inuit bands.

Even then, plague-stricken refugees aren't really candidates to carve out states on a virgin coast. They'd need the real spur of luck a lot of early English colonies had, otherwise they'd just get absorbed in the long run. Most would, anyway. Look at the Roanoke colony for instance. The Indians had already been afflicted by European diseases (which had helped finish off the Mississippians), but even so were more than a match for the colonists there.

Refugees from Iceland (the aforementioned Laki eruptions in the 18th century) and from Greenland (the Little Ice Age rather unfit for agriculture) could be there, but they need a place to live, and without Vinland (even limited to Newfoundland), they might as well flee back to Europe.
 
You know, when I thought about it, Leif and his contemporaries attempts seemed deeply ineffectual compared to their father. Eric got 600 + people, 25 ships, cattle, corn, sheep, pigs, goats, the whole lot. His kids had 1-2 ships. So I reread the sagas, and what I noticed was that their ventures do not seem like colonization efforts. They were exploration or trading trips, often concerned with bringing back timber.

It is also unlikly that they were on Newfoundland itself. They speak of exploring the lands to the west of Leif camp, which sounds like somewhere on the mainland east of Newfoundland.

I suppose, when the Greenland colony stared out, it seemed a pretty good place. The Dorset were just starting to spread from the far northwest, and the area around the eastern settlement probably had not seen humans for maybe 2000 years, since the Saqqaq. So seals, grouse etc had never seen humans and the rivers were probably full of salmon. At the time, to the children of the first settlers, land was not a scarcity resource. They had grown up in a society where empty land was just the next fjord over.

I vaguely remember reading that when the climate worsened, everyone moving to Vinland was debated on Geenland. There are some hints that that may have been what the Western settlement did, or tried to do. The discoveries thats been made lately indicates that occasionally, Geenlanders did try, but they didnt make any coordinated effort.

Eric was supposed to come along on Leifs exploration trip. But his horse slipped and it was interpreted as an omen so he didnt go. He died from illness, possibly pneumonia. If his horse hadn't slipped... he was born in Norway. He had enugh of a boner for land to settle Greenand. He was probably too long in the tooth to make another settlement, but I suspect there might never have been a western settlement. Eric would have had them go to Vinland instead.
 
A great many of those 25 ships must have been brought to Iceland by immigrants - Iceland had no timber suitable for shipbuilding. Greenland didn't either. This is probably one of the things that made further exploration and colonization difficult, lack of ships and need for trade or fishing vessels.

Sailing a ship from Greenland to Labrador to get more timber, possibly doing multiple trips, does not sound like a terribly efficient way of building new ships. Not building new ships does not sound like a terribly efficient way to maintain the skills over generations, either.
 
Well, it's why Greenlanders kept visiting Vinland, since they needed timber. Get a nice colony in Vinland and then let's see what happens?
 
Some trade opportunities. Though there would need to be a fair deal of ceramics or glass for bottling, I think they could still produce mead and beer on the local levels.
No need for bottles or ceramics. Iceland was actually aceramic. Wooden barrels are good for beer.
Honeybee is not native to Americas. Melipona lives as far south as Yucatan. Sailing over live hives from Europe would take effort and experience with beekeeping. So no mead. But beer/ale in wooden kegs keeps well. They need it anyway - weak beer keeps better on long sea voyages than fresh water does.
If they have farms dotted over the coast that locals don't want to go to the bother of using themselves, they might be able to trade alcoholic drinks in exchange for other goods. Not going with any stereotypes of Natives and alcohol, it simply tended to Ben enjoyed by many.
While hunter-gatherers did commonly supplement their diet with plant foods (Eskimos were woefully short of these), grain has certain advantages. Bread is relatively cheap, nutritious, portable and somewhat storable when dried. So a Saami or Beothuk hunter-gatherer might make the trip to the coast to a Norse farm and return with a keg of beer, and a bag of dried breads, in return for his produce (wild game, furs etc.).
(Grain stores better than baked bread or biscuits, but needs millstones and equipped kitchens on the part of consumer, more so than bread. Ground grits/flour may not require millstones from user, but still more kitchen equipment than bread.)
Making trade around harvests so that the Native tribes have something extra to celebrate with should make the Norse tolerable enough. Wondering if dried cod would be popular inland or if they would prefer fresh fish. Well, it might not be the most luxurious of exports, but dried cod should be a decent export to Europe, when the time comes for greater contact.
Fresh fish may be good in season, but having a Norse farm and its storehouses of various kinds of preserved foods - dried breads, flour, bread oven to bake more bread, kegs of beer, dried fish and salted meat, cheese, butter... - all of which are not going to migrate away or run out, at a walking distance of your camp, is an important security against running short if and when the wild animals and fish decide to have a lean season.
 
I know people have already touched upon the options of the Macaronesia (Azores, Madeira, Canary, and Cape Verde Islands), but I looked a bit closer and came across something that made me a bit more interested in these seemingly unimportant colonies.

The Volta do mar. Basically due to currents and wind patterns, it was easy to reach these islands from Iberia but difficult to return from them. The volta do mar is a sailing technique where after reaching these islands, sailors would sail to the to the northwest from these islands to catch eastbound currents back to Iberia and Europe. It was against previous logic as it requires sailors to sail away from home to eventual return there. It basically established a circular sail pattern that utilized the oceanic gyres. It was a major discovery that opened the way to European imperialism as it gave Europe understanding of how to use the trade winds. Portugal utilizing the experience they gained from the the Macaronesia Islands regarding the volta do mar to basically spread throughout the world's oceans largely in thirty years between 1492-1522.

So to reach and colonize these islands would require the Norse figuring out the volta do mar. Now I doubt this would have mattered a great deal with the early Viking/Norse naval vessels. The caravel was basically designed for Portugese exploration down the west African coast, as it was small and maneuverable while the lanteen sails allowed greater tacking. So it isn't like the vikings could have rounded Africa from utilizing the volta do mar, but if nothing else these islands being inhabited could serious screw with the Portugese Age of Discovery, and thus the Spanish one. Portugal wouldn't be settling previously uninhabited islands, and thus gain experience in the volta do mar.

Now this is something of a stretch, but I think this at least a possible series of events that could lead to significantly more Norse colonies. Tell me if you agree or disagree with its plausibility.

Some POD gives the Vikings, as after the Viking Age there weren't really enough Norse trying to settle other places, more success in Iberia. Maybe Vikings make an alliance with Asturias, and their attacks on Lisbon in 844 or 966 is more successful. A more serious migration of Norse follows, and they explore the nearby waters down the northwest African coast. They find the uninhabited Madeira, and maybe launch raids of the Canary Islands. Maybe even capture and settle a few of the smaller ones. The sailing to and fro these places eventually lead the Norse settlers to discover the Azores, and the travel reveals the volta do mar technique to the Norse colonists.

Now the Norse presence in Iberia is short, but no one else has the sailing expertise to reach these now Norse islands. Unless they go completely isolationist though, the Norse would probably need to trade. So either these islands go for the closer Iberian countries, and probably ends up annexed by some point. Or it could try to maintain weak ties to its cultural forebears in Scandinavia. Trade links between these islands and Norway/Denmark develop during and after the end of the Viking Age. Eventually one formally annexes them, I'm going to say Norway as Denmark was more focused on the Baltic. Obviously actual control would be limited, likely depending more on economic costs/benefits than military force. Closer to Greenland than anything.

The Kalmar Union was founded basically to counter the Hanseatic League. It would be hard to overcome the base the Hanseatic League had in the German States, but it might have been possible for the Kalmar Union to nullify their influence by founding trade links entirely separate from those controlled by the Hanseatic Cities. Portugal brought home enough gold from Guinea through their exploration that it expanded their commercial interest, proving the exploration could be profitable. If the independent exploration by the Macaronesia Islands showed a similar profit, it might draw interest. Queen Margaret could choose to sponsor expeditions, and crucially make it a priority to hold onto the islands. The Scandinavian countries had the wood, shipbuilding industries, and naval culture to pull it off. Regular barges had been used by the Portugese for the exploration till the need for lighter and more maneuverable vessels caused them to create the caravel. Lanteen sails were also broadly used in the Mediterranean, so the Norse islands could potentially develop it.

If against all the odds all this happened, the Kalmar Union would be in position to potentially have a Norse Age of Exploration half a century before the historic Portugese one. The Norse could be the ones to establish the trade routes to the Far East/Indian Ocean, not to mention South America and the Caribbean that also followed. I doubt the Kalmar Union would be in the position or have the strength to preempt or emulate the early Portugese and Spanish Empires, and I'm not even going to touch upon the internal politics of the Kalmar Union and how it would effect their exploration efforts, but you might be able to see the Kalmar Union or succeeding Denmark-Norway have major roles in the early colonial empires.

I understand its a very unlikely series of events. The Norse find and colonize Macaronesia>The Macaroneisian colonies maintain closer ties with distant Scandinavia than Iberia>The colonies are annexed by some point by Norway or the Kalmar Union>The entity then chooses to explore down the western coast of Africa. None impossible, but very unlikely all together. Especially as it would require events occurring over centuries going this way, without a clear end goal for the people of the time.

Still interesting idea on a Norse Age of Discovery that doesn't require Vinland or anything. What do you guys think? Unlikely but possible, or outright ASB series of events?
 
I think Tenerife could be possible - I expect the Norse were quite happy to trade with the sultanates in Morocco, and could have been blown off course to the likes of the islands we now refer to as Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria as well. Though I don't think they would have colonized more than 1 or 2 - maybe at best entered into some kind of cohabitation with the Guanches. Even the Spanish 6 centuries later had trouble pacifying the native people there, with far superior weaponry to that possessed by the Norse.

Apart from that maybe whaling bases near modern-day Archangelsk? I think Novaya Zemlaya is a bit of a stretch though. I'm not sure how much was going on in the Kola peninsula at that time either.
 
Apart from that maybe whaling bases near modern-day Archangelsk? I think Novaya Zemlaya is a bit of a stretch though. I'm not sure how much was going on in the Kola peninsula at that time either.

I mean, there was not direct control over what became Pomoria by any Russian landlords at the time, but the tax was sporadically gathered from Novgorod. This also is the legendary Bjarmia, no? Either way, they knew about it but didn't choose to settle, and instead raided it and occasionally got raided in return until the late 13th c.

After the 14th c. Slavic settlement really takes off and I think that may be the point of no return for any independent, culturally Norse settlement.
 
Norse age of discovery has a problem that needs to be overcome: no Henry the Navigator.

OTL Age of Discovery kicked off after a few decades of exploration and tech developement that was pushed for and funded by a single guy. You might be able to figure out some of the gyres if you operate, say, near Madeira or North America and over time ships get blown off course with some surviving and making it back.

But generally speaking, the reaction to "If a ship sails down African coast, it's not coming back" will be "Let's not go there" rather than "Let's spend a lot of resources to figure out why".
 
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