31 August 2019, Saturday

L’Anse aux Meadows gained Unesco World Heritage status in 1978 because of its international significance as the approximate meeting site of aboriginal peoples, ancestors of present day First Nations peoples of the area, and Norse people from Greenland and Iceland. It was the first time that humans wrapped around the entire globe.

Leif Eiriksson (as it is spelled in the park brochure) led 60-90 people to this place around the year 1000, and set up a winter camp for further exploration to the south. The Norse were in search of hardwood lumber as Greenland and Iceland did not provide the trees they needed. In the course of their explorations southward they not only found the trees they were seeking, but also wild grapes, probably in present day New Brunswick or PEI. It is understandable why they named this area Vinland.

In the 1950’s, Norwegian explorer, Helge Ingstad, using descriptions of landscapes from Norse sagas, sought proof of a Viking presence in North America. In 1960, a local fisherman led him to mounds on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Ingstad’s wife, Anna Stine, was an archaeologist and excavations were soon begun. Their investigation of the mounds provided proof that this was indeed the site of a Norse settlement. (To call it a Viking settlement isn’t really correct because ‘Viking’ was a term that was only applied to Norsemen who were sailing out on raids.)

O and I take the excellent tour led by park interpreter, Ethan. He leads us past previously excavated mounds that have since been re-covered in order to protect them from the elements. Items found here include worked wood and butternuts which only grow as far north as mid-New Brunswick, proving that these explorers landed in areas south of L’Anse aux Meadows around the St. Lawrence, probably at present day PEI, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. There is also evidence of iron smelting from bog ore. I had no idea what bog ore is. We learn that Newfoundland’s water is very high in iron (obvious from the color and taste of the water.) Bacteria in the water use the iron for energy, producing oxidized clumps of iron. These clumps can be reduced to iron and slag. The Vikings used the iron here to make nails and tools for repairs to their boats. Also found here was a bronze pin for fastening cloaks. 

Proof that women accompanied the men was the finding of bone needles and stones for the weighting of looms. Only women were allowed to sew and weave. It was women who were responsible for weaving sails from wool.

The Norse people arrived here in a shallow draft open boat used for trade, not war. It was called a knarr. L’Anse aux Meadows was abandoned after 10-15 years, probably because other, more profitable trade developed in other locations around Europe, and because the Norse realized they were vastly outnumbered by the aboriginals with whom relations were not always peaceful. (There is some record in aboriginal lore of contact with Europeans, but only much further north where trade went on for a much longer time.)

Past the mounds, the park service has constructed recreations of Viking buildings. Here a woman in Norse dress bakes bread over a fire using flour from barley, spelt, oats and rye flour, along with butter. Life for the Norse was difficult and short. Women typically lived only into their 30’s, dying from complications of childbirth or from lung disease due to the smoky dwellings. Men might survive into their 40’s.

Another interpreter encourages us to dress in Viking garb and lift the shields, swords and axes provided. O and I give it a try. Shields and weapons are pretty heavy!

After our tour O and I hike the Birchy Nuddick Trail. I’m not sure if the name means anything in particular. It’s a beautiful trail that traces the coastline and then loops back across the bogs which cover so much of Newfoundland. On the bogs we find bake-apple, also known as cloudberry, partridge berry also known as lingonberry or northern cranberry, and crowberry, which Newfoundlanders call blackberries. All of these had been pointed out by Ethan during our guided tour. By the end of our windblown afternoon O and I are more than ready to return to camp and dinner.