WI Newfoundland was uninhabited when the Norse landed?

But it might be to haul it to Iceland and Greenland.
Wasn't one of Iceland main enterprises exporting fish to Britain/Germany?
It would not be profitable to haul fish from the Grand Banks to Europe in a knarr.
I'm thinking we'd probably need to push the timescale back a bit from the typical period of 1000 AD when Vinland was discovered because the knarr while fulfilling the minimal requirements for the trip to Vinland, probably wasn't sufficient for a safe/profitable trip.

I'm thinking of a scenario during the reign of King Haakon IV of Norway. Norway had just ended its civil war period, and Haakon was very much trying to increase Norwegian influence in all direction. OTL he gained control of Greenland in 1261, and Iceland in 1262. What if however Greenland had a much harsher 12th century, to such a point that it was all but dying out by start of Haakon's reign. Greenland could have maybe offered to recognize his authority decades earlier in return for aid and new settlers enough to revive the colony. As Greenland would be useless without settlements, Haakon could agree. He'd likely find it easy to wrangle together several hundred people and sending them off to Greenland, especially since the wars against Ribbung and Skule likely left more than a few people Haakon wouldn't mind exiling without officially exiling them. The cog had also become prominent in the 12th century, and Haakon was known for his large and powerful fleet. So there'd be at least a few cogs among the people sent. The cog might have been slightly slower than knarrs, but was (I think) a safer seagoing vessel and was capable of carrying almost ten times the cargo capacity.

These newer, fresher, and more adventurous settlers would be in a better place to expand to utilize resources outside of Greenland. I don't think it a coincidence that most of the exploration of the Vinland region was done in the decades after Greenland was settled. While they used Labrador for timber, it seems likely that as Greenland settled down they lacked the resources to have ships explore for a full year much less start entire settlements several weeks of sailing away. A second wave of colonization would be better positioned to expand further and tentatively settle a number of areas of interest. This second wave would also have a degree of royal backing. Haakon entered an alliance with Castille, so he was rather open to opportunities far from Norway itself. If some of his people came back from Vinland and told him of the empty (in this thread) Newfoundland, I don't at all think he wouldn't at least consider sending an extra few hundred people to settle it in hopes of it eventually sprouting into a second Iceland (which he spent decades working to annex). And even sending three or four warships from his fleet of roughly 300 with 50-100 soldiers would almost certainly be able to protect a settlement in New Brunswick, where the walnuts and grapes were, from any native attacks.

I think this scenario would be far more likely to succeed than the original Vinland discovery in 1000 AD. Cogs would render it a safer trip and make trading far easier, this effort would have a degree of royal backing from a king more willing than most to devote resources to peripheral areas far from home, and Norway to the best of my knowledge had relatively easy succession after this so a degree of support from Norway would potentially follow for decades. True, this Vinland would only have a bit more than a century before the Little Ice Age really kicked into gear around 1350, but that would always be a problem for an isolated colony that almost certainly could be largely cut off from European support. However if the Norwegian fleet was devoted early to maintaining trade with such a distant place, it could potentially develop better navigational methods and ship architecture that would allow contact with Vinland to continue in the Little Ice Age. Not to mention royal backing and support would make it far easier for Norse settlements on New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to grow and prosper, a place more likely to survive the Little Ice Age relatively intact than Newfoundland.

A 'successful' Vinland colony does not have to be founded soon after discovery in 1000 AD. It could be established anytime between 1000-1492 AD. Hell, it doesn't have to even be before Columbus. Denmark-Norway could have potentially settled it afterwards. Maybe Columbus' discovery reach a few people in Scandinavia who renew interest in Vinland. They could be tempted by gold after the Spanish conquests of the Aztec's. Or Denmark-Norway could have tried to establish Vinland after the breakup of the Kalmar Union as a power play for prestige. If Denmark-Norway could establish themselves in the St. Lawrence Bay/Newfoundland in the first half of the 16th century, they could potentially preempt/edge out French, Spanish, and Portugese interest in the Grand Banks. It wasn't till 1583 that the area was officially claimed by England, and it was only in 1630 that St. Johns gained permanent residents. While there's little chance Denmark-Norway could compete with England or France in the colonial game overall, or that Denmark-Norway could hold the region from them, arguably Denmark-Norway had near a full century after Columbus that they might have been able to opportunistically snatch up the St. Lawrence Bay region. That would be more than enough to establish a modest colonial Empire, especially compared to OTL, while still fulfilling a Vinland colony.
 
I'm currently reading Seavers book about the Greenland Norse. It is really quite interesting and has a lot of information about things like the economy and trade of Greenland and what kind of crops it produced. I'm about 1/3rd of the way through. I'd like to come back and address some of the points here when I am done. But one of the things that stand out to me is that there clearly was a lot more contact between North America and the Greenland Norse than what the sagas relate. That's not too unbelievable, very little information actually survives and it would be quite a coincidence if everything about early contacts was among the surviving information.

But that means our assumption that the saga information relates to L'Anse aux Meadows and Newfoundland is probably wrong. For example, at the site worked remains of butternut wood was found. Even in todays warmer climate Butternuts range is further south, and in fact seems to be fairly even with wild grapes.

This means that the natives described in the sagas could have been someone with better population density.

I'm a great fan of Occam's Razor, we know the Norse settle Greenland which was empty, we know that the Norse saga told us the native of Vinland was hostile and therefore they didn't settle there. So the simplest hypothese to why the Norse diodn't settle in Vinland are in my opinion that there was hostile natives there. Yes they may have decided not to settle there anyway, but seeing as they settled Greenland with a far worse climate, I see no reason for why they wouldn't.

And the Norse that came to Vinland were Greenlanders. They had grown up with free land all around them. Scandinavia at the time were producing a population surplus and free land was scarce and valuable. I am thinking the Greenland Norse had very different attitudes to the Norwegians on the subject of space and land.
 
I'm currently reading Seavers book about the Greenland Norse. It is really quite interesting and has a lot of information about things like the economy and trade of Greenland and what kind of crops it produced. I'm about 1/3rd of the way through. I'd like to come back and address some of the points here when I am done. But one of the things that stand out to me is that there clearly was a lot more contact between North America and the Greenland Norse than what the sagas relate. That's not too unbelievable, very little information actually survives and it would be quite a coincidence if everything about early contacts was among the surviving information.

But that means our assumption that the saga information relates to L'Anse aux Meadows and Newfoundland is probably wrong. For example, at the site worked remains of butternut wood was found. Even in todays warmer climate Butternuts range is further south, and in fact seems to be fairly even with wild grapes.

This means that the natives described in the sagas could have been someone with better population density.



And the Norse that came to Vinland were Greenlanders. They had grown up with free land all around them. Scandinavia at the time were producing a population surplus and free land was scarce and valuable. I am thinking the Greenland Norse had very different attitudes to the Norwegians on the subject of space and land.

54 The artifacts at the Newfoundland site are more specialized than those typical of family farm sites in Greenland or Iceland; the buildings have relatively large living areas, plenty of space for storage and specific work areas. The extensive living space would have served an unusually large concentration of people. The exposed location of the settlement, on the open sea of the Strait of Belle Isle, suggests that seafaring was the most important function of the settlement. The burl of butternut wood (cut with a sharp metal knife and then discarded) and three butternuts, recovered from the carpentry waste, prove that some of the Norse who over-wintered at L'Anse aux Meadows had been farther south. Butternut or white walnut, Juglans cinerea, is a North American species of wood but is not indigenous to Newfoundland. Its northern limit lies about latitude 47° north, in the inner Miramichi region of northeastern New Brunswick, along the Saint John River and in the St. Lawrence River valley, west of Baie St. Paul, Quebec (Adams 2000). Finds of butternuts at L'Anse aux Meadows are significant because the most accessible sources, at least for Norse coming from Newfoundland, are also the northernmost areas in North America where wild grapes grow. For centuries, scholars debated whether the name Vinland stemmed from first-hand experience of grapes or if it simply symbolized paradisical qualities perceived in a country previously unknown to the Norse (Rafn 1837, Storm 1889, Hovgaard 1914, Magnusson and Pálsson 1965, Larsson 1999, Nansen 1911, Wahlgren 1956, Keller 2001).37 This debate can now be closed: the presence of butternut wood and nuts at L'Anse aux Meadows proves that the Norse did, in fact, visit areas where grapes grew wild.

For gods sakes just read the article I linked. It explains everything. The natives the sagas talk about are the Mi'kmaq from New Brunwick.
 
I'm currently reading Seavers book about the Greenland Norse. It is really quite interesting and has a lot of information about things like the economy and trade of Greenland and what kind of crops it produced. I'm about 1/3rd of the way through. I'd like to come back and address some of the points here when I am done. But one of the things that stand out to me is that there clearly was a lot more contact between North America and the Greenland Norse than what the sagas relate. That's not too unbelievable, very little information actually survives and it would be quite a coincidence if everything about early contacts was among the surviving information.
This means that the natives described in the sagas could have been someone with better population density


Which book are you reading? And doesn't this suggest that vinland is actually hard to pull off? If we know or think the Norse were present for years with sites outside Newfoundland, and packed up anyway...
 
For gods sakes just read the article I linked. It explains everything. The natives the sagas talk about are the Mi'kmaq from New Brunwick.

Well, since you seem to think so highly of it, I did take the time to go through it. Not much to it really. It is extremely short and lacking in detail, except on the subject of L'Anse aux Meadows. The author is trying to argue that the site is Leif Erikssons Straumsfjord, and that what has previously been though of as three sites are actually two. Understand that the author herself admits that this is stretching the available evidence. It is not a recital of fact, it is an argument for a theory. What Indians the first Norse met is still uncertain. On the site itself it brings up many of the same points as Seaver, like the Butternut wood and its overlap with the range of grapes. It is a serviceable summary of the Meadows site, but does not touch on any other interesting subjects.

Which book are you reading? And doesn't this suggest that vinland is actually hard to pull off? If we know or think the Norse were present for years with sites outside Newfoundland, and packed up anyway...

Seavers "The Frozen Echo", Stanford Press. It makes more use of Norwegian sources than many other works. And I am not sure if it means that Vinland were hard to pull off so much that they incentive did not exist during the first period of the Greenland occupation. We know that there was speculation about the Greenlanders moving to Vinland in later years, but they may have missed their window by then. When the climate worsened, I would speculate that their ability to make large population movements over the sea was degraded.
 
By the time climate really went to crapper, disease epidemics had decimated Icelandic and European populations. It was probably easier and safer to take a ship to Iceland and occupy some free plot of land than to take one to Newfoundland and do the same.
 
Well, since you seem to think so highly of it, I did take the time to go through it. Not much to it really. It is extremely short and lacking in detail, except on the subject of L'Anse aux Meadows. The author is trying to argue that the site is Leif Erikssons Straumsfjord, and that what has previously been though of as three sites are actually two. Understand that the author herself admits that this is stretching the available evidence. It is not a recital of fact, it is an argument for a theory. What Indians the first Norse met is still uncertain. On the site itself it brings up many of the same points as Seaver, like the Butternut wood and its overlap with the range of grapes. It is a serviceable summary of the Meadows site, but does not touch on any other interesting subjects.



Seavers "The Frozen Echo", Stanford Press. It makes more use of Norwegian sources than many other works. And I am not sure if it means that Vinland were hard to pull off so much that they incentive did not exist during the first period of the Greenland occupation. We know that there was speculation about the Greenlanders moving to Vinland in later years, but they may have missed their window by then. When the climate worsened, I would speculate that their ability to make large population movements over the sea was degraded.

Where does she say this? All the arguments she makes seem fine to me. Her argument for the natives being Mi'kmaq for example contains no stretching that I can see.
 
I've sometimes thought Iceland and Greenland were like early space colonies in that they weren't sustainable as they were initially developed. Icelanders chopped down their forests within a hundred years, so they had no way to build more ships. Greenland never had wood, so they were building out of sod and raising cattle...
 
Icelandic forests were small birch so they were not suitable for Norse shipbuilding in the first place.
 
I've sometimes thought Iceland and Greenland were like early space colonies in that they weren't sustainable as they were initially developed. Icelanders chopped down their forests within a hundred years, so they had no way to build more ships. Greenland never had wood, so they were building out of sod and raising cattle...
Actually, Greenland did have wood in the form of small birches as well as some driftwood. So yes, they did build out of sod. Besides the Norse could sail to Markland and cut wood there. The problem here is the limited number of ships most of which are foreign owned. These are more likely to carry cargo between Norway and Greenland than sail to Markland for timber.
 
By the time climate really went to crapper, disease epidemics had decimated Icelandic and European populations. It was probably easier and safer to take a ship to Iceland and occupy some free plot of land than to take one to Newfoundland and do the same.
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WI you wave away the bubonic plague?
Lean years of the Little Ice Age would reduce European population to sustainable levels matching existing farmland.
With no vacant land in Iceland or Northern Europe, Greenland Vikings would be forced to retreat Southwest. NFLD would remain little more than trading post because it has so little arable land, but Viking farmers could easily till Prince Edward Island, the Annapolis Valley and parts of New Brunswick.
 
Actually, Greenland did have wood in the form of small birches as well as some driftwood. So yes, they did build out of sod. Besides the Norse could sail to Markland and cut wood there. The problem here is the limited number of ships most of which are foreign owned. These are more likely to carry cargo between Norway and Greenland than sail to Markland for timber.

If they can get wood from Markland, why are the ships foreign owned?
 
If I'd have to guess, I'd say that using your ships - and possibly losing them - to get wood and iron to build new ships is not terribly efficient process. It would also be a significant investment of labor, and I'm not sure Greenland had much of that to spare given their low population. And I wouldn't think it impossible that the sklls needed would atrophy over time if there was not much shipbuilding going on.
 
If they can get wood from Markland, why are the ships foreign owned?

This is just me completely wildly guessing, but probably because of maintenance costs (rot, wear and tear, etc.). If all those ships are doing is going to Markland to get lumber, it might actually be unprofitable to maintain them. Iceland didn't have much in terms of locally-owned large trading vessels either.
 
This is just me completely wildly guessing, but probably because of maintenance costs (rot, wear and tear, etc.). If all those ships are doing is going to Markland to get lumber, it might actually be unprofitable to maintain them. Iceland didn't have much in terms of locally-owned large trading vessels either.
Exactly. Greenland had too small a population to build its own ships and it was too poor to import them.
 
Exactly. Greenland had too small a population to build its own ships and it was too poor to import them.

Except greenlanders were building / maintaining there own ships for most of greenland's existence. The largest/wealthiest landowners owned the ships and maintained them with imported wood from Markland, and then used said ships to go on resourcing missions up north to harvest walrus hides and ivory, and whale tusks, etc. The Norse ships of this time were not super large and with regular maintenance would last a long time.

Now there were two ways their ships would be built. Either a ship and crew would sail to Markland, fill up with a load of wood (enough to build another ship), and return, building the ship over the following winter. Or else they would sail to Markland, build a second ship there, and then sail both back to greenland. Either method is plausible. I will see (later) if I can find the link to the research papers this came from... cheers.
 
Except greenlanders were building / maintaining there own ships for most of greenland's existence. The largest/wealthiest landowners owned the ships and maintained them with imported wood from Markland, and then used said ships to go on resourcing missions up north to harvest walrus hides and ivory, and whale tusks, etc. The Norse ships of this time were not super large and with regular maintenance would last a long time.

Now there were two ways their ships would be built. Either a ship and crew would sail to Markland, fill up with a load of wood (enough to build another ship), and return, building the ship over the following winter. Or else they would sail to Markland, build a second ship there, and then sail both back to greenland. Either method is plausible. I will see (later) if I can find the link to the research papers this came from... cheers.
Now I don't doubt some ships were built in Greenland, maybe even most. I simply wish to point out that another method that could be used is to sail to Norway, and buy a ship from there. Might be more expensive, but saves the effort and time to recruit people to go to Markland, chop wood, cut the wood into proper shapes, and build the ship. Especially as Greenlanders already had to go to Norway/Iceland for products from mainland Europe and to sell their ivory.

Not saying they did this more or anything, but it does show that Greenland didn't have to go to Markland to build their own ships.
 
Now I don't doubt some ships were built in Greenland, maybe even most. I simply wish to point out that another method that could be used is to sail to Norway, and buy a ship from there. Might be more expensive, but saves the effort and time to recruit people to go to Markland, chop wood, cut the wood into proper shapes, and build the ship. Especially as Greenlanders already had to go to Norway/Iceland for products from mainland Europe and to sell their ivory.

Not saying they did this more or anything, but it does show that Greenland didn't have to go to Markland to build their own ships.
Fair enough. Good point - though going to Markland also has the added benefits of being able to hunt/gather/collect other beneficial materials of worth (including animal furs and iron and possibly copper). :)
 
The point I am after here is that all these hindrances add up and make ships expensive. And there are critical uses for them, like fishing, hunting, trading or getting materials for maintaining or building new ships.

So the people who would be inclined to, say, colonize Newfoundland where the prize is getting to be a subsistence farmer in the middle of nowhere would not be able to afford to.
 
If Vinland itself doesn't have anything of sufficient value to justify a long-term settlement, could you make it a stopover to somewhere that does have something of sufficient value? Suppose some harebrained explorer for whatever reason takes his ship as far south from Vinland as he can. Could he make it down the coast to Mesoamerica or down the lakes and rivers to Cahokia?

I'd envision a situation where rumors slowly leaked back to Europe of the great cities across the ocean where you can swap a shipload of iron for a shipload of gold or jade or chocolate. The voyage would be long and hard, but just one successful trip would set you up for life. And there would probably be a fair few young men willing to risk their lives following up on those rumors.

In such a situation Vinland could be a base-camp where European traders and explorers plan their expeditions to find these fables cities far to the south. As time goes on, even if the trading expeditions are only occasionally successful, you would have enough people coming and going, and enough of an economy, that the Vinland colony would hit a self-sustaining critical mass.
 
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