WI: Viking make permanent settlement in North America...

Well, nobody seems to have come up with the (IMHO) obvious way of making it easy to colonize Vinland: just have someone with smallpox come over. IOTL it blew through the Beothuks like nothing, and I see no real problem with it doing the same to the Skraelings (whether they were protoBeothuk or Dorset Inuit). It won't change the fact that Vinland is an economically marginal colony out at the bleeding edge of the known world, but it will get rid of the Skraelings that IOTL caused the Norse such problems.

We had this discussion before and its been used - at least by myself. It is quite obvious no matter who tries to colonize the Americas.
 
Could a later united Norse controlled Canada have become strong enough to challenge England?

Probably not - I would estimate a migration of tops 50.000 norse, leaving the North Atlantic empty. Of course they would multiply as would the Native Americas following the initial pan-demics. But challenge England - no.
 
Greenland would stil be hanging on as a Norse settlement if they had Bermuda as a backstop. Not so much dairy as in OTL, as mining. Coal, iron ore, gold, copper, molybdenum, clay, silica, all the things that Bermuda doesn't have.
Greenland doesn't have food. Bermuda has food. Labrador and Newfoundland have timber, more ore, more fish, some dairy.
Greenland would have intermittant dairy cultivation, some crops every other century,depending on the weather.
 
Greenland would stil be hanging on as a Norse settlement if they had Bermuda as a backstop. Not so much dairy as in OTL, as mining. Coal, iron ore, gold, copper, molybdenum, clay, silica, all the things that Bermuda doesn't have.
Greenland doesn't have food. Bermuda has food. Labrador and Newfoundland have timber, more ore, more fish, some dairy.
Greenland would have intermittant dairy cultivation, some crops every other century,depending on the weather.

Greenland have lots of food you just need to ajust to local conditions.
A lot was done by the Norse in Greenland - fishing, change from cattle to sheep and making irrigation to get extra hay for fodder. Its possible and it was done. But it was difficult. Give the oppertunity they'd moved on!
Big thing missing was trees.

Mining really wasn't an option until around 1000.
 
[petulant]Well, nobody has mentioned it here yet, so I feel justified.[/petulant] :rolleyes:

ahem:

A common factor is that european diseases buys the settlers a "grace period" of 2 generations or so to dig in.

Anyway, I see a lot of assumptions about a colony being geographically located to Canada/Newfoundland. In my TL I had the seabone nature of the immigration result in a long strip of coast being settled, with the inland initially left alone. I think it could work quite similar to that. The Norse were far better at harvesting fish than the natives, and the faster comunications and movement by ship would be an advantage in a fight.

Once the indians recover, I can see the Norse holding costal areas most strongly. Mind you, I could also see the Gulf of st. Lawrence becoming a "Norse sea". Unbelivable fishing for a food source the natives cannot touch, and Norse dominance in ship tech means that once they got an island, they will be very hard to dislodge.
 
ahem:
Anyway, I see a lot of assumptions about a colony being geographically located to Canada/Newfoundland. In my TL I had the seabone nature of the immigration result in a long strip of coast being settled, with the inland initially left alone. I think it could work quite similar to that. The Norse were far better at harvesting fish than the natives, and the faster comunications and movement by ship would be an advantage in a fight.

Once the indians recover, I can see the Norse holding costal areas most strongly. Mind you, I could also see the Gulf of st. Lawrence becoming a "Norse sea". Unbelivable fishing for a food source the natives cannot touch, and Norse dominance in ship tech means that once they got an island, they will be very hard to dislodge.

Newfoundland would also be a good place to put all those sheep and there's plente of iron to be found in the St. Lawrence Bay area.
Fish - iron - sheep land - islands - smallpox: good oppertunity for the Norse to dig in.
Just need numbers!
 
Numbers indeed.

And there is the problem: Vinland was at the end of a very long supply chain where each stop was smaller, more dangerous to reach, and had less population.

And from the Norse viewpoint, it was really no better than Russia, which was closer by far.

Once you get an initial group of settlers there, there will be a native die-off, and rumors of empty lands with good climate will bring more people. What is needed is a good initial colonization.

Edit: An earlier black death? Or similar plague, and people try to flee? Of course adding the Black Death to the initial disease-shock for the natives makes it look disturbingly similar to an extinction scenario for them.

Anyway a scenario with a stomped europe, where the Norse are in North America and Mali in south america would be interesting.
 
Last edited:
Numbers indeed.

And there is the problem: Vinland was at the end of a very long supply chain where each stop was smaller, more dangerous to reach, and had less population.

And from the Norse viewpoint, it was really no better than Russia, which was closer by far.

Once you get an initial group of settlers there, there will be a native die-off, and rumors of empty lands with good climate will bring more people. What is needed is a good initial colonization.

Edit: An earlier black death? Or similar plague, and people try to flee? Of course adding the Black Death to the initial disease-shock for the natives makes it look disturbingly similar to an extinction scenario for them.

Anyway a scenario with a stomped europe, where the Norse are in North America and Mali in south america would be interesting.

Agree.

We had another POD discussion some time ago - which I used as POD - stronger Frankisk/British kingdoms fend off the Vikings that go into the North Atlantic.
Then tie this in with the early Black Death in say 980. The Norse have had 200 years to get aquianted with Vinland part of the Native population already died off of smallpox etc and the Black Death takes the rest and at the same time Europe is stomped! Make the Black Death more creeping forward and the Norse have more time to pack their backs and go west. Somebody on the last ship brings the Black Death along but the Norse are still in better shape to ride out the pan-demic. :cool:
 
Top