The Geography of Medieval Greenland | Vikings at the Edge of the Ice

Most of us hear the story of how the Vikings, or Norse, sailed across the stormy Atlantic and settled Iceland. Many times we hear about the Vikings in Vinland. But too often, history discussions skip over the Norse in Greenland. These communities were long-lived outposts at the edge of an ice sheet 12,000 feet tall—they were not, however, alone. Today we dive briefly into the story of how the Norse and Thule people settled a vicious icy domain, and survived for centuries.

Image Sources:

Canadian Museum of History
Google Earth
Wikipedia Commons
Flickr

Information Sources:

Canadian Museum of History

Greenlanders, Whales, and Whaling: Sustainability and Self-Determination in the Arctic. By Richard A. Caulfield

Handbook of Climatology, Part 1. By Julius von Hann, Robert DeCourcy Ward

Archaeology of Frontiers & Boundaries. By J ROBINSON

Lepus arcticus (Arctic hare), Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

Bennike, Ole; Andreasen, Claus (2005). "New dates of musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus) remains from northwest Greenland". Polar Record. 41 (2): 125–129.

Gunn, A. (2016). "Rangifer tarandus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016

Thomas, Henry; Dana Lee Thomas (1972). Living Adventures in Science. Ayer Publishing. pp. 196–201.

The Wave Energy Concentration at the Agulhas Current off South Africa
I. V. Lavrenov. Natural Hazards volume 17, pages 117–127 (1998)

[casualearth-dandavis]

I mispronounced Thule. There will usually be at least one mispronunciation in every video--think of it like a "Where's Waldo?" type of thing.

[loungelizard]

I didn't know about the driftwood around Greenland, but it makes sense with all those boreal forests surrounding the Arctic.Thanks for the video, I loved it.

[kesorangutan]

There's actually a forest in Greenland. It's called Qinngua valley. It's on the southern tip of the island.

[capnstewy]

Walrus ivory will make you do a heck of a lot of crazy stuff. Tribute records show that the revenue from Greenland was twice as valuable as the revenue from Iceland. Also, bone records show that as time went along and it got colder the Norse population had a greater and greater proportion of marine food in their diet. The real end of the Norse settlements was the introduction of mass elephant ivory to the European market by the Portuguese. It was cheaper, more abundant, and of higher quality. Economics!

[calebweldon]

Medieval Greenland is such an interesting situation. Literally the only piece of land where Europeans got here first then where replaced by native Americans. Such an interesting society they built got a time. Great podcast called collapse of civilizations that had an episode on them

[Artimoi]

This channel is criminally underrated, truly a great video, thanks for all your efforts, I cant imagine the amount of research this was. Dont stop making videos!

[FakeGoogleName]

I think this is your best video yet - perfect in scope, pictures and coverage of history, geography and meteorology. And respectful of all the people and cultures involved.

[EdwardHamiltonDavis]

I really enjoyed this. The combination of geography, history, and cultural studies is very effective here. The arc of the story about humans trying to civilize Greenland’s harsh habitat is interesting enough to hold our attention, even while you convey a great deal of information. Thank you so much.

[fiddleriddlediddlediddle]

I could listen to you talk about Thule/Inuit technology and society all day and never get sick of it.

[PremierCCGuyMMXVI]

Both the Inuit people and the Vikings were very tough people. Living in the extremely cold and harsh arctic climate of Greenland. Very impressive. Homo Sapiens are sure an adaptive species and our ancestors such as the Inuit and the Vikings are a big reason we are here today.

[patrickdegenaar]

holy moly... those vikings that went to Greenland were insane! 50% mortality rate to get to the promised land of... Greenland!!!

[MrWill]

Man this is SO good. I'm legitimately getting emotional at just how good this content is. Thanks so much for sharing your passion

[bradypriest]

this is one of my new favorite channels!! I love how you incorporate geography, anthropology, and history all together, and in the most objective way possible!

[MightyFineMan]

You are such a fantastic storyteller. I watch your videos before going to sleep, and it feels like a good bedtime history/geography story. And it is well remembered the next day.

[duncanbeggs]

You should do a video about the Messinian Salinity Crisis and what the environment of the dried out Mediterranean basin would have been like. Apparently it was as hot as 170 degrees Fahrenheit! Seems like an interesting topic no one knows about.

[calengr]

5:33 driftwood; 6:12 length of colony; 6:50 Thule hunting techniques, clothing; 8:50 hunting seals; 10:06 Thules meet Vikings; 11:28 raid

[baswar]

I once heard a theory that the use of cattle may have been part of the problem. Cattle require a lot of food and maintenance than say sheep and goats. Meaning a lot of pasture land was needed in summer and a lot of hay in winter. Something that may have become difficult in greenland especially if deforestation of the few forests they had nearby and digging up of peat from bogs lead to more flooding of the little land available for farming

[EdwardHamiltonDavis]

Excellent video. So much information, presented clearly and following an arc that keeps our attention. Bravo, sir!

[dankahraman]

The best I have have learned immensely from your hard and outstanding work.

[Shaheen_Hassan]

The water equivalent snowfall in Greenland's southeast coast exceeds 2500 mm per year and can reach to over 3000 mm. A really huge amount.

A non freezing climate is tolerable with huge amounts of rainfall, but in a freezing climate like this one, any amount above 1000 mm is way too much.