Why did the Norse Icelanders colonize Greenland in the late tenth century A.D., and why did they explore the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland? Was it a desperate search for farmland at the margins of the known world, or was it a market-driven economic strategy applied to sub-arctic territory? To address these questions, the author gives a brief introduction to the Norse expansion and economic strategies in three regions: the Sami territory in Northern Scandinavia, the Finnish and Russian territories east of Scandinavia, and Greenland and Labrador in the western North Atlantic. The purpose of the expansion north and east of Scandinavia was to buy or extort furs from the hunter-gatherer communities. This strategy is unthinkable without a European and even Middle Eastern demand for furs, and must generally be seen as market-driven. The author suggests that the Norse explorations of Labrador and the colonization of Greenland was equally market driven, with walrus tusks as the most successful export commodity. In the twelfth century, the Norse economy transformed from a Viking Period high-status trade with luxury articles to a low-status bulk trade with foodstuffs. Stockfish from the north was exchanged for grain from the south. Norwegian stockfish export started ca. 1100 A.D., while Iceland commenced almost a century later. This shift caused structural changes to both Norwegian and Icelandic economies, and must also have affected the Norse Greenland economy. The author recommends that the regional and national investigations that have dominated the research be supplemented with North European studies of the Viking and Medieval cash and trade economies, spanning from acquisition to consumption.

In this paper, contacts between the Moravian Brethren of French-speaking Switzerland, the Moravian missionaries, and the Inuit Christian converts in Labrador are described. The role of the missionary journals, the annual collection of gifts for the missions, and, more specifically, the role of Jean-Louis Micheli, philanthropist and member of Eglise évangélique de Genève are considered. It will be shown that interactions between these varied elements have been instrumental in the development of a number of scientific fields, in particular: meteorology, climatology, and phenology, as well as ethnography, and that important contributions to these fields resulted. The Labrador origin of certain items in the collection of the Musée d'Ethnographie in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, whose provenance has appeared unclear, is suggested on the basis of these historical and cultural interactions between Labrador/Nunatsiavut, the missionaries, and the Moravian Brethren in French-speaking Switzerland.

Encounters between Europeans and the Beothuk in southeastern Newfoundland took a variety of forms in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. There is evidence to suggest some trade, but also scavenging, theft, mutual hostility, and avoidance. By the middle of the seventeenth century, relations had deteriorated to the point that the Beothuk retreated from this area to points north and west. This paper examines the nature of Beothuk-European relations during the early contact period as it is evident in the archaeological and historic record of southeastern Newfoundland, including new evidence from the site of Stock Cove, and suggests that the failure of the Beothuk and Europeans to solidify and sustain relations was due to the unpredictable nature of the encounter experience. Ultimately, this failure would play a significant role in the demise of the Beothuk.