PlotVitalNPC said:Maybe they acquire lumber in excess of what the archipelago produces by sailing west to Anticosti Island when the natives aren't hunting there.
They can really go wherever they want in the region. You've got white pine for masts, hard maple for keels, and juniper and spruce for decks, in multiple places throughout the Gulf of St. Lawrence; ship-building is not going to be an issue, provided they've got enough sheep with them to make sails.
For a warrior culture, the ideas you outline make sense to me. You would have a very hard time prosletizing the "turn the other cheek" version of Christianity to that group of folks.
While describing Norse colonists as a "warrior culture" might be a little too generous, it was certainly an honor culture and often a culture of violence, and I agree completely that "turn the other cheek" would be hard to swallow. We're talking about people among whom it was expected you would slay outright the man who called you a coward, or at least duel him, lest your passivity in the face of the accusation be taken as proof that you actually were a coward.
I think any "Thor-Jesus" is going to be a heroic, victorious figure emphasizing the salvation and eternal life of the loyal, virtuous, and honorable. The theme of Christ as a courageous warrior or chieftain, attended to by his loyal retainers, is already reflected in a number of Norse and Anglo-Saxon early Christian writings like the Dream of the Rood. His own crucifixion is a total victory over the greatest foe, Death itself, a victory which he sacrifices his own life to achieve. (And, as related in the Niðrstigningarsaga, even death can't stop him from kicking Satan's ass.)
Honestly, I'm having a lot of fun re-imagining the gospel stories rewritten in a "Norse-friendly" style.