# Why Did The Viking Colonies In North America Fail? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 20, 2003, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828 "2003-04-20T09:27:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sock\_Munkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Sock\_Munkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sock_Munkey)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/1 "2003-04-20T09:27:18Z")
I’ve heard that the Viking colonies established in northern Canada a thousand years ago failed partly because of conflicts with the local native tribes. Is this so? What other reasons could there have been, and how might history have been affected if they had lasted? ---
**Author:** ![stypticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f05b48/32.png) [@stypticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stypticus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/2 "2003-04-20T10:02:18Z")
Their hockey teams just couldn’t match true Canadian blood. They got eliminated early in the playoffs. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/3 "2003-04-20T12:16:48Z")
You might try [here](http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/prehistory/vikings/oview.html) for an overview. The page implies that there was both trouble with the Natives and the shear isolation from the rest of Viking culture had parts to play. There is, however, very little in the way of direct evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/4 "2003-04-20T13:13:09Z")
It was difficult for Europeans to gain a foothold in North America centuries later, even with guns and with true oceanic sailing vessels to provide regular resupply- advantages the Vikings didn’t have. Even though explorers after Columbus soon learned about the northward extent of the coast, it was not permanently settled for nearly 100 years. The Spanish concentrated on exploiting their Carribean/South American empire. It’s been argued that settlement in North America wasn’t possible until after the native Americans had been decimated by European diseases, and even then the threat of attack persisted for decades. In addition, the Viking settlements were in the far north and not the more temperate regions further south. Finally, it may simply have been a historical fluke. If the luck of draw had been slightly beter, maybe the Vikings would have successfully colonized North America. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/5 "2003-04-20T13:35:29Z")
Too much room-temperature beer. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/6 "2003-04-20T15:19:34Z")
Another probably cause was the little Ice Age…You saw global cooling starting in the 1150s, finally hitting its peak in the early 1500s. As the climate cooled, colonies like Greenland, which were marginal and dependant on food imports anyway, became uninhabitable. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/7 "2003-04-20T15:23:42Z")
Jared Diamond’s _Guns, Germs and Steel_ (a great book I just finished yesterday) touches upon this very question. Bascially, while the Vikings had advantages like steel weapons, some farming and (perhaps) disease resistance, they didn’t have true ocean-going vessels (they had to hop from Scandinavia to Iceland to Greenland to Baffin to Newfoundland), which meant that settlements couldn’t be steadily supplied. This also meant that the American colonies weren’t that much of an advantage to the homelands, so there was no big incentive to keep sending ships. Added to all that, the Vikings also lacked the horses (at least on the voyages to America) and guns that gave the Spaniards such a huge advantage over the Incans and everyone else they encountered in the Americas. Steel swords and axes just weren’t enough to make up for the Vikings’ small numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/8 "2003-04-20T15:23:56Z")
Or, as the Icelandic pastor Olafur Einarsson complained in a poem in the 1500s: [http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/decline\_of\_vikings\_iceland.html](http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/decline_of_vikings_iceland.html) > [@](#): > > Formerly the earth produced all sorts > of fruit, plants and roots. > But now almost nothing grows… > Then the floods, the lakes and the blue waves > Brought abundant fish. > But now hardly one can be seen. > The misery increases more. > The same applies to other goods… > > Frost and cold torment people > The good years are rare. > If everything should be put in a verse > Only a few take care of the miserables… ---
**Author:** ![sugaree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/9 "2003-04-20T17:16:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lumpy \* > **It’s been argued that settlement in North America wasn’t possible until after the native Americans had been decimated by European diseases, and even then the threat of attack persisted for decades.** Post-Columbian, the more virulent African diseases took a greater toll on American aborigines than did European diseases. The Vikings of course would not have brought any African strains to the New World. ---
**Author:** ![3.885AM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/58956e/32.png) [@3.885AM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3.885AM)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/10 "2003-04-20T18:58:43Z")
No Spam! ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/11 "2003-04-20T19:19:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Captain Amazing \* > \*\*Another probably cause was the little Ice Age…You saw global cooling starting in the 1150s, finally hitting its peak in the early 1500s. As the climate cooled, colonies like Greenland, which were marginal and dependant on food imports anyway, became uninhabitable. \*\* It’s been a while since I read Guns, Germs, and Steel. Does Jared Diamond not mention this at all, **Sublight**? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/12 "2003-04-20T19:23:12Z")
There were conflicts with Native Americans, whom the Viking called “Scraelings,” a word of uncertain etymology. There were several skirmishes with the Scraelings but also murders amongst the Vikings themselves that led to their abandoning the colony. You can read about it in a translation of Erik the Red’s Saga: [http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/2/16/h16-4207-e.html](http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/2/16/h16-4207-e.html) There is another saga, The Saga of the Greenlanders, which covers the same events but differs in many of the details. I can’t find it online. The Greenlanders didn’t go away for good. They continued making timber runs to Labrador at least until 1347. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/13 "2003-04-20T19:29:15Z")
Sock: As to your last question, if the vikings had succeeded in colonizing America, we’d all be a bunch of lilly-livered peacenik Scandanavian types with even worst food than we have now. On the plus, though, we’d have topless beaches! ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/14 "2003-04-20T19:35:08Z")
Skraelings, not Screaelings. The modern Icelandic form is Skrælingjar and the Old Norse was Skrælingar (both plural). ---
**Author:** ![1000monkeys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/7cd45c/32.png) [@1000monkeys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1000monkeys)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/15 "2003-04-20T23:14:11Z")
RM Mentock- Its been about a year since I read Diamonds GG&S, but yes I do beleive he mentions the “little ice age” as a important factor. Though I beleive he stresses the lack of guns, and germs- those after all being the cornerstones of the book’s thesis. Dont take that as a criticism of the book, I think its spectacular, and should be required reading in college level western civ. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/16 "2003-04-20T23:46:56Z")
Per Diamond: > [@](#): > > . . . the ultimate reasons why Norse colonization of Greenland and America failed are abundantly clear. It failed because the source (Norway), the targets (Greenland and Newfoundland), and the time (A.D. 984-1410) guaranteed that Europe’s potential advantages of food production, technology, and political organization could not be applied effectively. At latitudes too high for much food production, the iron tools of a few Norse, weakly supported by one of Europe’s poorer states, were no match for the stone, bone, and wooden tools of Eskimo and Indian hunter-gatherers, the world’s greatest masters of Arctic survival skills. I would add that at that time Europeans had neither the compass nor the printing press, two inventions that later proved decisive in the conquest and exploitation of the Americas. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/17 "2003-04-21T00:56:31Z")
The _printing press_ was decisive to conquering the Americas?? Please elaborate. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/18 "2003-04-21T01:01:38Z")
Because seafarers did not have to rely solely on word of mouth and hand-written directions. Also the travelers’ accounts and discoveries could be more widely distributed. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/19 "2003-04-21T01:08:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RM Mentock \* > \*\*It’s been a while since I read Guns, Germs, and Steel. Does Jared Diamond not mention this at all, **Sublight**? \*\* He does. > [@](#): > > In the Little Ice Age that began in the 13th century, the cooling of the North Atlantic made food production in Greenland, and Norse voyaging to Greenland from Norway or Iceland, even more marginal than before. The Greenlanders’ last known contact with Europeans came in 1410 with an Icelandic ship that arrived after being blown off course. When Europeans finally began again to visit Greenland in 1577, its Norse colony no longer existed, having evidently disappeared without any record during the 15th century. Even before the Little Ice Age, though, organized agricultural settlements on Greenland were next to impossible. Almost everything they needed, including timber, had to be brought from Norway. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2003, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828/20 "2003-04-21T04:54:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*Sock: > > As to your last question, if the vikings had succeeded in colonizing America, we’d all be a bunch of lilly-livered peacenik Scandanavian types with even worst food than we have now. On the plus, though, we’d have topless beaches! \*\* Of course, that’s assuming the British didn’t eventually kick them out anyway. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-viking-colonies-in-north-america-fail/169828.md?page=2)