Getting Around NUNA

 

Map by Dave Paddon, who is working to preserve the old knowledge of Labrador.

Atelihai!

In traditional roleplaying games, travel to and from destinations is usually handwaived, and does not vary much throughout the seasons. In Lord of the Rings, the ringbearers decided to walk across the whole land and only vary due to a magical snow and windstorm they deem too dangerous.

In NUNA we call this type of weather a normal Tuesday.

In pre-modern Labrador, all travel from when the snow fell in late October to April was done by dogsled. Whether you were delivering mail or taking people to a hospital, it was the only way to go as the ocean was battered by winter storms and the land was covered in snow over your head.

I am working on the Travel systems for Nuna now and found the above map of pre-aviation dogsled routes. People back then were built different, and the effort and skill needed to complete the mailroutes by dogsled back then was nothing short of superhuman.

Here is the message of the OP:

"Hello in the Big Land. 

I made up this map a few years ago mostly based on Them Days (gistory magazine). It shows the dogteam mail routes prior to air travel and I have been thinking a bit about the mail carriers and the unimaginable hardships they went through. I know that Sam Lyall was 8 days from Burwell to Hebron to get the mail and then 30 days getting back!

There are other stories for sure and I would like to collect a few and maybe put them in a recitation. Or at least post them on pages like this one.

If you had an ancestor who was a dogteam mail carrier and you know of a story or incident they experienced while on the job maybe you could write me a paragraph and send it on Messenger. It could be serious or funny or anything really. For instance, one of Henry John Williams' descendants told me he once dumped off a load of catalogues as the going was to soft for all the weight!

I think these guys deserve some recognition."