JAMES STEEVES/ATLANTIC STOCK IMAGES
26
W
INTER
2000
Lei f  s Legacy
A thousand years ago, Vikings made their way from Scandinavia to
North America, establishing a settlement in
Newfoundland at a place we now call L Anse aux Meadows
BY ALLAN LYNCH
really looked like some waiting to bite a boat s underside.
spots in Iceland  like This year Archaeologists believe the area
 Itthe ends of the earth, of L Anse aux Meadows looks
marks the
says Gunnar Marel Eggertsson of much today as it did a millennium
1,000th
L Anse aux Meadows in north- ago, save that the tree line was
western Newfoundland. anniversary of closer to the shore in Eriksson s
Standing at the helm of the time.
the arrival of
Viking longship Islendingur, It became Gunnar Eggertsson s
Leif Eriksson
Eggertsson recalls the emotion of millennium project to return, with
seeing L Anse aux Meadows from at L'Anse aux a crew of friends (seven men and
the water for the first time.  I was one woman), to Newfoundland as
Meadows, Nfld.,
touched because there are Ice- latter-day Vikings. A boat builder
where the
landic houses. And to come to and licensed fishing captain, not
New-found-land [he pronounces legendary Viking to mention experienced longboat
every syllable like many  come sailor, Eggertsson left Iceland on
established a
from aways ], to a place like L Anse June 24 of this year.  It took us
settlement.
aux Meadows, that s really some- only about seven days to sail to
thing for an Icelander. Greenland and then another six
L Anse aux Meadows is special to sail from there to Canada, says
to Icelanders because at the turn of the last the 45-year-old Eggertsson, his face reddened
millennium, in the year 1000, Eggertsson s by winds, waves and sun.  So you can see our
direct ancestor Leif Eriksson sailed a Viking ship was really fast. Speed isn t a problem for
longship into the bay here. Eriksson brought a Viking ship.
30 people with him to establish a settlement Eggertsson s project was part passion, part
on the island almost 500 years before Colum- mission; he wanted to rehabilitate the repu-
bus sailed to the New World. tation of the Norse people  technically,
A thousand years later, L Anse aux Vikings were Norsemen who went on raids,
Meadows can still feel like a land that time although the term  Viking is often used
has forgotten. Mossy partridgeberry and bake- more broadly today to include all Norsemen
apple plants cover a boggy shelf along the (the Viking period lasted from AD 800
rocky shoreline. Cow parsnip, which looks to 1050).  Not all Norsemen were rapists
like prehistoric Queen Anne s lace, stands and pillagers. They were farmers, they were
as tall as the centuries-old dwarf trees. settlers, they were really clever people
The only noticeable sounds are the cry who were very advanced in their techno-
of seabirds, the wind and slapping logical thinking.
waves on the rock and pebble-strewn This is not the image that many
shore. In the shallow water near the people have of them, however,
original settlement, rows of jagged thanks largely to Hollywood,
rock jut out of the calm, clear which has painted a picture
water like giant ancient teeth of wild men in horned hel-
IMPERIAL OIL REVIEW 27
T.W. HALL, SHANE KELLY/PARKS CANADA
mets terrorizing the world. While it s true Viking an arm, the instrument, Eggertsson explains,
warriors did raid and terrorize much of coastal  tells you the height of the sun, and from that
Europe, the Black Sea and Mediterranean, the fact you can find, pretty well, your latitude. Determin-
remains that the majority of Norse were not warriors ing longitude, he says, would have been more
but livestock farmers. difficult. (A precise way to measure longitude
There are many Hollywood-created myths was not found until the late 1700s, when the
surrounding the Vikings, says Dr. Birgitta Wallace, Englishman John Harrison invented the marine
a retired Parks Canada archaeologist. For example, chronometer.)
they did not send their dead off in burning ships  At night, they had the stars and the moon,
to seek Valhalla  by AD 1000, most Vikings had birds, currents, sea and winds, says Eggertsson,
converted to Christianity and were generally buried explaining that Eriksson s crew would have
in consecrated ground.  And the horns on the used these environmental elements to deter-
helmets are a fabrication of 19th-century romantic mine location and the optimal route.  The Norse
fiction, she adds. were very clever at this, he emphasizes.
The Vikings advanced technological under-
standing manifested itself not only in superior ships  Like all Icelanders, Eggertsson grew up hear-
their famous dragon boats were flexible enough to ing the old Viking sagas.  Every Icelandic child
survive in rough seas  but in innovative tools. knows these, he explains.  We are proud of our his-
Relics
 When you look at their tools, you realize there tory and of being Icelanders.
was little difference between those used by, say, a It wasn t until 1837, when the sagas were
such as a
Viking farmer or carpenter and their counterparts in published in Latin, that scholars outside Scandinavia
Viking helmet
Europe or North America just 150 years ago, learned that Vikings had come to North America.
(above),anchor
explains Wallace. A year later, when the stories were translated into
Just how advanced the Vikings were was made English, curious Victorians embraced the mystery of
(below) and
clear to Eggertsson during the 12 months he the Vikings and where they had gone in the New
spinning
spent building the Islendingur, using as a model an World.  Everyone had a theory, chuckles Wallace.
tool (right,
AD 890 longship, which is now in the Viking Ship Fuelled by the speculation, people began looking
Museum in Oslo.  The Norse were really clever, for evidence. An old stone windmill in Rhode
bottom)
emphasizes Eggertsson.  They thought about amaz- Island, for example, was thought by some to be a
give clues to
ing things, like enabling a ship to create air bubbles Viking tower  it had, in fact, been built in the 17th-
Norse life.
in front of it so it would sail more smoothly. century by a governor of the state. There were other
Viking design allows the ship to ride waves like a misinterpretations and even hoaxes, but, neverthe-
This summer
surfboard, rather than sit in the water and push less, the idea of a Viking expedition to what is now
the longship
against them, which is why Vikings were able to North America survived in the public imagination,
Islendingur
travel as far and as fast as they did. and the search continued.
While Eggertsson had to make some compromises Like detectives reading a crime scene, explorers
sailed from
to the original design (adding sleeping quarters, two and archaeologists pored over the sagas, looking
Iceland to
engines and communications devices) before officials for clues to the whereabouts of Norse settlement
L'Anse aux
would let him leave Icelandic waters, he and his crew on this continent. Wallace has studied 79 possible
were still able to experience sailing as Leif Eriksson sites  only L Anse aux Meadows could be authen-
Meadows,
and his shipmates did, encountering challenges ticated, although other evidence of a Norse presence
site of the
Eriksson might have and using their wits to overcome in North America has been uncovered. A coin
reconstructed
them.  We were stuck in ice for 10 hours because of found in Maine, for example, has been identified as
black fog and an inaccurate weather forecast. It told a Norse penny from between AD 1065 and 1080.
Viking settle-
us that the ice was about 35 nautical miles out from Also, there are some 100 objects dating from the
ment (right).
Cape Farewell [Greenland], but the ice was actually late 13th century that were found at a Thule site
about 60 nautical miles out. We were really lucky (the Thule predated the Inuit) on eastern Ellesmere
to get the ship out of the ice field in one piece. Island. While authentic in themselves, however,
There were heavy currents, strong winds and, these do not provide conclusive evidence that a
that night, the fog. Everything was just about as settlement existed at the location  there may, for
difficult as it could be for sailors. example, simply have been a shipwreck.
While the Islendingur was equipped with In 1978, the United Nations Educational, Scien-
modern navigational equipment, Eggertsson tific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named
and his crew did at times use a hśsasnotra, or L Anse aux Meadows the first World Heritage Site, a
sun-shadow board, the 1,000-year-old sextantlike designation recognizing  the exceptional universal
instrument on which the Vikings relied. A simple value of a cultural or natural site that deserves
wooden disc with two wooden rings positioned on protection for the benefit of all humanity.
28 WINTER 2000
T.W. HALL/PARKS CANADA; BRUCE KEMP
Currently, there are 630 such sites, including the aux Meadows ranks among the major archaeological
pyramids of Egypt, designated in 1979, and the Great properties of the world.
Wall of China, designated in 1987.
Outside the visitor centre at L Anse aux Meadows, Finding the location of Viking settlements in
there is a plaque that states:  The Norse travelled North America meant much more than solving one
here around 1000 AD. The archaeological remains of the earth s mysteries; it represented the identifi-
of their sod buildings are the earliest known Euro- cation of the last link in the human encirclement of
pean structures in North America. Their bloomery, the planet. Scientists believe the human race origi-
or ironworks, is the site of the first known iron nated in Africa. Between 150,000 and 250,000 years
working in the New World. The site itself is the ago, some tribes travelled to eastern Asia, while others
base from where they launched expeditions went west and north to Europe and Scandinavia.
resulting in the first contact between aborigi- The descendants of the east Asian tribes are the
nal North Americans and Europeans. L Anse indigenous people of North America; the Vikings
IMPERIAL OIL REVIEW 29
THORKELL THORKELSSON/ CP PICTURE ARCHIVES; JAMES STEEVES/ATLANTIC STOCK IMAGES; SHANE KELLY/PARKS CANADA
upon. The first was said to have been  Helluland
(Baffin Island) and the second  Markland (central
Gunnar Marel Eggertsson Voyage
Labrador). As in the story of Goldilocks, the third,
Vinland, proved just right, with sweet-tasting, dew-
Scandinavia
Greenland covered grass, salmon bigger than the Norse had ever
seen and a place where no winter fodder would be
needed for livestock because there were no heavy frosts
and the grasses stayed exposed (research suggests that
areas of the northern hemisphere were at the time
Iceland
experiencing a warm period, which lasted several
hundred years and saw agriculture expand northward).
North
America
While explorers had been searching the coastline
of North America from Rhode Island to the Arctic
" L Anse aux Meadows
since the mid-1800s, looking for evidence of Viking
North
Vinland
settlement, it wasn t until 1960, when George Decker,
Atlantic Ocean
Europe
a Newfoundland fisher, showed the Norwegian
explorer Helge Ingstad the strange mounds on which
arrival in Newfoundland represents the first time the local children played, that anyone realized these
two arms of the human race reunited. could be the remnants of Leif Eriksson s camp.
According to Birgitta Wallace, L Anse aux Lloyd Decker chuckles as he recalls Ingstad s
Meadows was inhabited for only a few years and was words when the explorer saw the mounds for the first
not meant to be a permanent colony but merely a time.   George, you make sure no one touches
convenient outpost from which Leif Eriksson could these, he said to my father when he realized what
explore what would be known, more than 500 years they were, explains Lloyd.
later, as the New World. Weather conditions dic-   This is Crown land, Dad replied.  I don t have
tated that the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans any authority to stop people from coming here.
were only open to Eriksson for a few months each Ingstad looked at him and said,  It won t be long
year. Having a western settlement gave him more before you ll have authority.
time for exploration. All summer, groups of Vikings  The next day, Dad got a telegram. It was from
A map shows
would explore the region along the coast of New- Joey Smallwood, who was premier of Newfoundland
foundland, Labrador and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. then.  Site Ingstad believes to be Viking, don t let
the route
Each fall, they would return to L Anse aux Meadows anyone trespass. This was Dad s authority. Joey s
followed by
to wait out the winter in their tiny community, word was law.
which included three steep-roofed halls (the largest Lloyd went to work for Ingstad in 1961, cutting
Gunnar
of which could house 20 to 30 people as well as store and rolling up sod and cleaning off the top layers of
Eggertsson
provisions); three huts and a small house, which dirt from the site. Also working on the team were
together probably quartered slaves and people of Anne Stine Ingstad, Helge s archaeologist-wife, and
(above).
lower rank; and a smithy. All the dwellings were Birgitta Wallace. Clayton Colbourne, a Parks Canada
A bracelet
timber frame and sod-covered. guide at L Anse aux Meadows who played at the site
Wallace says the Vikings followed the classic as a child, says,  When Dr. Ingstad started digging
(below) was
immigration model.  People established bases, and here in 1961, nobody believed he was right about the
among the
looked for and made inventories of resources, she site. I was 13 years old, and I can remember the cyni-
says.  The French did this too  they were looking cism. People thought he and his team were a bunch
artefacts found
primarily for coal and lumber. The Norse came in of fools just digging around in the muck.
at L Anse aux
search of lumber, which they found in abundance. But with every sliver of nonindigenous wood, evi-
They also found wild grapes, which appealed to dence mounted and local cynicism was dispelled as
Meadows.
them so much that they named the area encompass- one of the world s great stories of discovery, adven-
ing the coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Prince ture and reunification unfolded. Eventually, the
Edward Island, New Brunswick and eastern Quebec archaeologists reconstructed the settlement, piecing
 Vinland. Wine, a great luxury that only those of together a picture of the life and culture of the
high rank could afford, had to be imported by the Vikings in North America.
Norse into Greenland, Iceland and all of Scandi- Gunnar Eggertsson reflects on why his ancestors
navia from the Rhineland and France. might have chosen to settle at L Anse aux Meadows.
 It s a beautiful land, Newfoundland, he says sim-
According to the Viking sagas, Vinland ply.  It doesn t amaze me that they were fond of it
was the last of three areas the Vikings came 1000 years ago. R'
30 WINTER 2000
MAP: RICHIE TRIPP; ANDREW VAUGHAN/CP PICTURE ARCHIVES; T.W. HALL/PARKS CANADA