Episode 02: Vikings In America
History tells us that over the course of 500 years from 1000 CE to the 1500s, Norse presence in North America dwindled to nothing. And ultimately, their impact on the history of North America is fleeting.
But What If the Vikings grew their settlements over the first five centuries here. What If they ultimately grew their presence to 30,000 or more in warmer areas like New York, Massachusetts, or even the Carolinas?
Historians agree that their impact on Native American, European, and even our American history would be profound. It is not a very far stretch of the imagination to envision an aggressive Viking migration to a milder and more temperate climate hundreds of miles further south along the Atlantic Coast.
With the Little Ice Age, both land and rations, and resources in Iceland, Greenland, England, and many parts of Europe were stretched beyond their ability to support local populations. A stable, growing settlement in Vinland would be attractive to many of these seafarers and peasants. We know this for sure because the migration repeats itself hundreds of years later with the Dutch, French, and English settlers.
In our What If scenario we imagine what life would be like in a large Viking settlement in North America. We are not thinking about New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement that later became New York. We will imagine Bjorn Buo, a town translated to mean “Bear Shelter”.
In our story, Bjorn Bour is not the traditional Viking settlement of farms centrally located around longhouses and a stone church. Rather, it is a vibrant, bustling city of thousands of fishermen, boat builders, iron craftsmen, traders, farmers, hunters, butchers, bakers, and even a bishop. And we are about to walk its streets.
