4 ms·

There's only one very slight mention of the lack of fish in their diet in this article, which I think does injustice to a component that (I feel) is exceptional

There's only one very slight mention of the lack of fish in their diet in this article, which I think does injustice to a component that (I feel) is exceptionally important to understanding why the colony failed: They did not eat fish. Greenland has something like a 3-month harvest period, which is very, very little. Supplementation with seals only gets you so far, especially when the Greenlanders were also focused on trophy hunting to offer tithes to the church back in Europe. A single hiccup in their harvest could lead to an irrecoverable overharvesting of seals and then the eventual starvation (or almost-starvation/exodus). Not eating fish!

jpatokal 10y ago
This is also particularly weird since mainland Norwegians do eat a lot of fish. Jared Diamond's Collapse goes into more detail about the Norse social hierarchy: apparently the upper classes ate a lot of beef, and seal etc was for the common man. Incidentally, similar themes repeat elsewhere: the First Fleet that founded Sydney had no fishermen at all on board, and for a long time respectable people aspired to eat beef imported from England while lobster and other seafood was only for convicts.