Surviving Viking Colony In North Amican

I agree if the Vikings can set up their colonies in modern-day Newfoundland/Labrador and Nova Scotia in the 400 years from around 900 to the 1300s they would have a decent chance of surviving with the above suggestions. Oh and in case anybody wishes to know more about this warming period it was called Medieval Warm Period.

This link covers it for anybody who has the time to read up on this. www.britannica.com/science/medieval-warm-period.

Vinland was abandoned, it seems, for three reasons,

1.there was no value in establishing a viable colony: the land did not provide the Norsemen with anything they could not find back home.

2.there weren’t enough people to establish a viable colony: it is thought that Greenland the nearest colony (nearly 2,000 miles away) only had around 500 people.

3.the land was already occupied: the native population vastly outnumbered the meagre numbers of Norse settlers.

So it seems to me that in order to establish a viable community they would have to come in larger numbers, become self-sufficient i.e., forget about returning home and try their best to behave.

Although evidence is sketchy at best the Norse settlements in Greenland reached a peak population of anywhere between 2,000 and 10,000 and it seems the last written document from Greenland settlements dates to c. 1408 AD and details the marriage of Thorstein Olafsson and Sigrid Björnsdóttirin and there is nothing in this document that would suggest that the settlements were under stress or facing oblivion so Historians can only guess as to why the Greenland Norsemen simply 'vanished'.

I think it was you who mentioned the Medieval Warming Period. It was this climatic conditions that enabled the Norsemen to establish a successful community on Greenland. They simply picked their lives up in Norway and then put them down in eastern and southern shores of Greenland. Evidence suggests that Norse folk had managed to create a viable agricultural practices that lead to the increase in population. In fact the environment was just right for them to grow barley and other crops that could be used in making beer and bread. This was not to last... The decline in Norse civilisation in Greenland is gradual and seems to be down to climate change which reduced the growing seasons, which in turn meant the Norse folk found it difficult to cultivate crops. 

In 1257 a cataclysmic event took place over 8,000 miles away on the other side of the world which would not only have a profound climatic affect on Greenland but Europe as a whole is thought to have caused famine and combined with disease Humanity was in rough shape. The Greenlander Norse folk didn't appear to be able to adapt like the Inuit who looked to the seas rather than the land and as of 1408 no-one had heard of them. It is feasible that perhaps in an attempt to fend off extinction the Norse folk may have made the move to North America. 

I would also like to add that when I went to Peru we visited an 'Inca' site Ollantytambo in the Sacred Valley. Our local guide drew our attention to a mountain side. Now at the top to the left of the ruins on this mountain was a profile of Wiracocha, a Quechua God. She then told us to look at the same mountain but this time concentrate on the central portion straight in front of us and a strange face started to appeared. I say strange because this face has a beard... Quechua men don't grow beards. She told us that there was a story of strangers being found on the coast of Peru. They were not like the native population and these strangers claimed to have been blown of course by a storm. The strangers and the locals got on fine and when their ships were repaired the strangers returned to the ocean and were never seen again. But before they left they promised the locals that they would return one day. It is thought (and there is zero evidence for this but it's a story so bare with me) that these strangers could have been Vikings... 

I would hazard a guess that it is a story that is probably told to gringos... But in all honesty it did look Northern European.

If you want a surviving Norse colony, I'd say between 900 and 940 AD, they see that the waters of Newfoundland are teeming with fish, so the Norse come to see what else is over there.

Between 915 and 1015, several thousand Norse come to eastern Canada, establishing villages at St Johns NFL, Sydney NS, and Souris PEI, and a few other places, with a few hundred people in each village. Their technology is not really too far above that of the natives, but they tend to trade peacefully when they encounter the Indians. Some Norse find coal at Sydney Mines, and figure out it can be burned for warmth instead of wood, and they begin mining it and shipping it to other villages, establishing an increase in trade and developing a more common culture for Vinland, establishing ties between the villages.

Ships sail back to northern Britain, Iceland, Greenland, and the Scandinavian countries of Europe with tales of 'burning black rock' (coal), fish, and other things easily found in the far west, bringing an increase in the number of people sailing for the far west. By 1000, there are about 10,000 people, including some Gaelic speakers and late Old English speakers, and Old German speakers. They bring metal working to the western hemisphere, and their metal armor helps them fend off the occasional Indian raids, crossbows and long bows being better made and more accurate than those of the natives.

From 1000 to 1100, the ships continued east and west, while the English focused on the Norman conquerors, and the continent by and large forgot about the far west. The population grew, and while it didn't really offer too much in the north different from Europe, the temptation of freedom from close crown oversight, milder climate, and land drew men and women to the new lands. Some venturing far south found grapes and a root vegetable called a potato, that soon became a staple of their diet.

By 1400, the warming ended, cutting off ships coming from Europe, but there were about 55,000 settlers. With the ocean currents, the climate was milder than Europe, even with the colder weather. By the time the English came to Newfoundland, they found villages of Norse with a unique dialect similar to that of Iceland, still written in an older Latin alphabet and often in runes. Roads, stone and wooden houses, and plenty of villages with a European population of around 255,000 between Newfoundland, St John Island, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and Anticosti Island. The French attempted settling Acadia west of the existing settlements, while the English claimed and conquered Newfoundland, letting the settlers alone, just requiring them to submit to the English crown.