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Sinclair Enthusiasts;
I have often been fastenated about economic history and its
impact on social history. It is my understanding that logs and lumbering in
Northern Europe may offer one further logical explaination for not only the
Henry Sinclair voyage, but also the importance of the Sinclair family in
Northern Scotland. One has to appreciate the demand for logs and lumber from
heating to building prior to 1700 for heat, building and perhaps most uniquely
for transportation and ship building.
It was this demand for sizeable logs in ship building that
became critical. By 1200 the massive long trees used for the keels and ribs of
vessels were no longer plentiful. This was obvious all through Northern Europe
including Norway. One has to keep in mind that wood vessels have a lifespan in
the water and to make anything of the length and size of what was required was
not easy unless the major beams were carved from one piece of wood.
Joindering was not done with rivets obviously. Now recalling that it takes
centuries to grow a tree of this length and dimention and the demand
for this critical lumber in construction of everything of any size, then one
then has to appreciate that searching for such large trees such as oaks became a
critical activity for all the Northern European nations. Now the location of the
trees of this size also was an issue. If they existed in the interior access and
moving them was deterrent to harvesting them for ship building on the coast.
Now if one looks at a map of northern Europe and looks for the
area for old growth forest in say 1200-1500 one has to do a lot of looking.
Certainly in the North where trees were a but smaller by natural geography. One
looks at Northern Scotland, Norway, Sweden the coast of Finland, Denmark, and
then all the way across to Greenland then Labrador and Newfoundland trees of the
length required for Viking keels were simply not plentiful. Go south to
the Maritimes and to New England and surprise one had such resources again
in abundance. In fact the lumber of the New World kept the Navy's of Europe
going until 1850 and built the largest fleets for America with the
properties of long masts and spars and keels and ribs. Henry's
voyage to the new world may have been motivated by a number of mythical and
otherwise logical quests, but as Admiral of Scotland, and as an Earl of Norway
one of the chief occupations of concern was simply where to find the natural
resources to keep rebuilding the ships in use. Again this is one of the
simple and obvious explainations for adventure of any sort and while not as
glamorous as other explainations, it is simple economic and geographical
history. Niven might add this to his list of explainations for the voyage
but I presume he has done so.
Neil Sinclair
Toronto/PEI/Forever Argyll
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