How to make North A financial/economic Power House

[Mrstrategy]

How could you make the north a financial/economic power house under the starks?

Edited July 19, 2023 by Mrstrategy
Fixing

[Ser Leftwich]

Two words: pickled herring. They can't go bad, ship them everywhere to eat. Make millions.

[astarkchoice]

 Their economy is fine its still as rich as many other regionsn but could be boosted in Few easy steps 

1)build an western navy based on bear island : will help encourage people to live along the west coast with must less fear of seabourne reavers, would boost fishing and limited  trade there.

2) fix the nightwatch so people will actualy live safely close to the wall then resettle the gift.

3)push trade deals with the ibbense, sanori(maybe send forces there in winter so the old men dont die in the snow but up to their neck in dothraki blood!!)  and bravos etc.

[Craving Peaches]

18 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

3)push trade deals with the ibbense, sanori(maybe send forces there in winter so the old men dont die in the snow but up to their neck in dothraki blood!!)  and bravos etc.

The mouth of the Weeping Water could make a good trade port.

[astarkchoice]

8 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

The mouth of the Weeping Water could make a good trade port.

Yeah have the boltons skin any meat products comming in off the boats lol

 

Id say balzewater bay would do far better for a few reasons

1)Its protect from thus opening up the whole west coast for people.to feel.safe and settle, go fishing etc.

2)Peacetime trade could come up the coast from seaguard, iron isles and lannisport to the north!  One of the biggest issues the north has is it feels the winters the worst,  so ships comming from a breadbasket like the riverlands would be good.

3)trade moving much faster AND by passing the famous frey tolls!

4)it would cost a lot of lumber which they could clear from jist north of the wall  making wildling incursions harder

[Corvo the Crow]

Beyond the Wall trade colonies, on either side, trade with goods that would be cheap(er compared to FF) for the Northmen but more expensive or even near unobtainable due to their lack of technology and society.

Jon had the right idea, they should buy the freedom of some Myrish glassblowers and have them teach their craft, use the glass as both a trade good and have more wintergardens like in Winterfell. 
 

Wintertown and it’s environs is really underutilized. They have hotsprings which is used to their benefit come winter but it should be used all the time.

They have forests located near White Knife which ends in a major port with a shipyard, they should reap the benefits of that, in time they could even rival Braavos’ Arsenal.

[SeanF]

Ships’ supplies should be the massive export.  Braavos is just across the Narrow Sea, and would welcome a source of pine and pitch (like the Royal Navy depended on the Baltic.) Other than that, amber, salted and smoked fish, and furs must be available for export in big quantities.

It would need a government that welcomes and promotes trade, rather than looking down on it.

In return, the North would want grain, spirits, silks, spices, and machinery.

Edited July 19, 2023 by SeanF

[James Arryn]

3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

The mouth of the Weeping Water could make a good trade port.

River mouths/estuaries can be great locales for cities, but are also often deltas that hold little solid land and problematic water supplies, ironically. Depends a lot on local geology, especially pre-industrial. But more significantly, the actual ideal is not so much the mouth of the rive, but the furthest up the water system regular shipping can go. Pre-mechanization, even to a degree post, but more essentially pre, you want to travel/ship by sea as far as you can before transitioning to the much less cost-effective means of land transport available at that time.
 

As a Canadian this is more realized because the St. Lawrence explains why Canada’s two biggest cities/Atlantic trade ports are Toronto and Montreal, each very far inland from the Atlantic, and why Quebec City was such a geo-strategic priority. Why unload in say Halifax and then start mule trains or w/e to get inland when you can ship everything as far as like Duluth, Chicago or similar?

[SeanF]

10 hours ago, James Arryn said:

River mouths/estuaries can be great locales for cities, but are also often deltas that hold little solid land and problematic water supplies, ironically. Depends a lot on local geology, especially pre-industrial. But more significantly, the actual ideal is not so much the mouth of the rive, but the furthest up the water system regular shipping can go. Pre-mechanization, even to a degree post, but more essentially pre, you want to travel/ship by sea as far as you can before transitioning to the much less cost-effective means of land transport available at that time.
 

As a Canadian this is more realized because the St. Lawrence explains why Canada’s two biggest cities/Atlantic trade ports are Toronto and Montreal, each very far inland from the Atlantic, and why Quebec City was such a geo-strategic priority. Why unload in say Halifax and then start mule trains or w/e to get inland when you can ship everything as far as like Duluth, Chicago or similar?

Interesting post.

Pre-railway, the cost of transporting anything overland was prohibitive, which is why all big towns and cities were on the coast, or on navigable waterways.

[astarkchoice]

19 hours ago, SeanF said:

Ships’ supplies should be the massive export.  Braavos is just across the Narrow Sea, and would welcome a source of pine and pitch (like the Royal Navy depended on the Baltic.) Other than that, amber, salted and smoked fish, and furs must be available for export in big quantities.

It would need a government that welcomes and promotes trade, rather than looking down on it.

In return, the North would want grain, spirits, silks, spices, and machinery.

Yeah they could kill 2 birds with ome stone

Cut down massive amounts of forrest near the wall making wildling incursions easy to spot, move the timber (minus a few tonne of firewood for the watch)  via eastwatch to bravos. 

In no time the 2 gifts would  be suitable for settlement to massively raise stark ,umber, karstark etc manpower!

Edited July 20, 2023 by astarkchoice

[Lord of Oldstones]

Open Fever river for trade and order Flint,Ryswell,Mormont & Glover to build good fleet.  Have a Stark held town fief with strong fleet on Sea dragon point and Stony shore. 

Get your Stark brother to Lordship in Night Watch and return gift back to Umber,Mountain clans and Stark cadet. 

Rebuild and manage Moat Cailin and pathway along the Neck for good trade outpost. Building bridge north of Twins would also be ideal to get off nusiance of Freys.

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by Lord of Oldstones

[SaffronLady]

Magically heat up the entire North. If the North has Reach climate, it becomes the most prosperous agricultural zone of Westeros given its good river positioning (relatively even, unlike the riverlands' top & bottom setup) and because it is bigger than the Reach.

[BlackLightning]

On 7/19/2023 at 10:41 AM, Mrstrategy said:

How could you make the north a financial/economic power house under the starks?

First things first is that you need more people. A lot more people. Most of the North's wealth of resources are untouched because there aren't enough people to harvest them. This is the key. As @Corvo the Crow mentioned, getting people (or rather, beggars and slaves) to come to Westeros from the Free Cities and bring their trades would do a lot.

The second order of business is that you need a port somewhere on the west coast. Bear Island would be ideal but Asha had the right of it when she mentioned the Stony Shore and Sea Dragon Point.

Third order of business is to bring the islands of Skagos and Skane into the fold.

Fourth order of business is rebuild Moat Cailin and make it a trading hub

[Loose Bolt]

Start looking for available minerals. After all the North is size of Europa so there should be a lot of usable minerals still under ground.

[KingintheNorth4]

Well with it's vast wilderness, the North would make bank in the lumber industry. 

[sifth]

Making peace with the wildings would help.