On Geographical Determinism

So. I am getting ready to get back round to Ultima Thule in the timeline. One thing that I have been thinking of is this. Of course, during our timeline (OTL) America became, in part, the home of religious refugees. Puritans, Quakers and Catholics set up shop in the English colonies, and neither of those groups were particularly favored in England.

Is it unduly, well, predictable to have Ultima Thule become the home of Cathars and Norse Pagans? I mean, after all, Spanish and Portuguese America OTL did not exactly become the land of refugees from Catholic persecution. The Inquisition even set up shop on this side of the Atlantic. A couple things have me thinking that Ultima Thule's fate might plausibly differ. First, the discovery of Ultima Thule predated the strong state in Europe. The Spanish Crown was very determined that empire-building in America be an enterprise of the monarchy, not some freelances setting up statelets with themselves as Dukes and so forth, having only feudal ties to the monarchy. So, effectively, the state apparatus does not have control over the colonization of Ultima Thule. Second is that there are obviously no natives. The Spanish had a great concern that the Amerinds not be led astray by heretics. After all, the Spanish had just expelled the jews and Muslims from Spain, largely on the basis that their presence somehow could "corrupt" good Catholics. No such concerns predominate in the EA timeline, although the Papacy has decided that UT was set aside by God for His People and the prospect of it being peopled by pagans, heretics, etc is worrysome. So, I don't think it is unduly, well, paralellistic for religious minorities to find haven in the New World, no matter what it is called.