{"id":20826,"date":"2022-04-10T11:17:43","date_gmt":"2022-04-10T15:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=20826"},"modified":"2022-04-10T11:19:26","modified_gmt":"2022-04-10T15:19:26","slug":"episode-567-vinland-the-hystery-of-lanse-aux-meadows-alan-we-are-going-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=20826","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 567 VINLAND…THE HYSTERY OF L’ANSE AUX MEADOWS…”Alan, we are going to die!”"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE 567   VINLAND…THE MYSTERY OF L’ANSE AUX MEADOWS\u2026\u201dAlan, we are going to die!”<\/p>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
April 5, 2022<\/div>\n

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Imagine living here\u2026under a sod covered roof\u2026in a house buried in the snows of winter.<\/div>\n

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VINLAND \u2014 THERE IS NO MYSTERY QUITE LIKE THE VINLAND SAGAS<\/div>\n

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Vinland is to me, the consummate mystery in Canadian history.  And it will remain<\/div>\n
a place of mystery and wonder forever because very few Canadians will<\/div>\n
ever visit L\u2019Anse aux Meadows except, perhaps, in their imaginations\u2026place where <\/div>\n
the ice of endless winter gets mixed up with the its opposite\u2026.the fires of hell.<\/div>\n

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I just found a few pictures taken of this mysterious Unesco site\u2026.pictures we took<\/div>\n
on  a very risky flight to L\u2019Anse aux Meadows a few years ago.   If you want adventure<\/div>\n
and history rolled together with the addition of loneliness and mystery then<\/div>\n
plan this trip.<\/div>\n

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\"Westviking:\"Westviking:<\/div>\n

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VINLAND \u2014 AN ADVENTURE<\/div>\n

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My trip occurred first in my mind.  I never ever expected to get there in real life.<\/div>\n
I took a lunch hour trip that lasted for 20 or more lunch hours sitting at my desk<\/div>\n
in Room 218 at Parkdale Collegiate.  What a wonderful adventure that was.<\/div>\n
Reading  Farley Mowatt\u2019s book, West Viking, which recounted all the Viking sagas<\/div>\n
in  the year 1,000 A.D. when the world was a lot warmer and Greenland was habitable<\/div>\n
and Viking sailing ships got lost and landed on the northern tip of Newfoundland.<\/div>\n
Almost 500 years before Christiopher Columbus \u2018discovered\u2019 the Americas.<\/div>\n

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Was the Viking land called Vinland a real place? The search for Vinland was difficult<\/div>\n
..i.e. a land of grape vines and fine wine.  Certainly not near St. Anthony where ice, snow<\/div>\n
and floating iceberg cathedrals float by and no trees grow.  Grapes? On this desolate tip of Newfoundland?  Get serious.  Then again maybe the<\/div>\n
name Vinland was a marketing scheme.  The same kind of marketing scheme<\/div>\n
that gave Greenland its name.   If settlers are wanted then they will be attracted<\/div>\n
more to a land of milk, honey and fine wine than to a place where people freeze to<\/div>\n
death without benefit of fine wine.  Right?<\/div>\n

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I have an answer to explain the name Vinland.  Wine can be made from any kind of berry or fruit,<\/div>\n
Remember hard liquor, vodka, can be made from potatoes which defies imagination.<\/div>\n
On our summer visit to Vinland there were all kinds of berries growing on the stunted<\/div>\n
shrubs\u2026.close to the ground.  Edible berries.  Hence wine.  And also, more important,<\/div>\n
the climate was very different in 1,000 a.d. which was very warm compared to today.<\/div>\n
Climate change. Affected Europe. A period of food in the tummies of most people. And a period <\/div>\n
of exploration and settlement of Greenland.   Warm in Newfoundland when compared with<\/div>\n
today.  Maybe the Climate Change that we are living through will allow grapes to grow in St. Anthony<\/div>\n
once agan.  That\u2019s a guess on my part.<\/div>\n

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The last written records of the Norse Greenlanders are from an Icelandic marriage in 1408, which was recorded<\/span><\/figcaption>
 later in Iceland, at Hvalsey Church, the best-preserved of the Norse ruins.<\/span> Wikimedia<\/span>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption>
The thriving population of Greenland in its best years only totalled 500.<\/figcaption>

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NOTE:  THE SKEOCH CONNECTION WITH MODERN ICELAND<\/div>\n
This is also a mystery.   Dr. Lawrence Skeoch, a distant relative, was a Professor of Economics at<\/div>\n
Queen\u2019s University some yeas ago.  We met once or twice.  My cousin Ken Skeoch got to know<\/div>\n
Dr. Skeoch much better.  The Iceland connection:  Lawrence Skeoch married a daughter whose father<\/div>\n
was once the prime minister of Iceland.  Lawrence and his wife lived on an historic Icelandic farm that<\/div>\n
I believe is now an Icelandic historic site.  Wish I knew more.  Perhaps a reader will know more than<\/div>\n
I do.    (alan skeoch, April 10, 2022)<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Summer is very short at L\u2019Anse Aux Meadows.  Few if any tourists arrive in late winter was we did on our first trip.<\/div>\n

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Not much to see in winter.  Vikings huddled around their open fire pits<\/span> in these sod roofed homes.   I am not sure they built<\/font><\/figcaption>
these fences but perhaps the restoration people knew more than I do.<\/font><\/figcaption>

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“Roughly 1,000 years ago, the story goes, a Viking trader and adventurer named Thorfinn Karlsefni set off from the west coast of Greenland with three ships and a band of Norse to explore a newly discovered land that promised fabulous riches. Following the route that had been pioneered some seven years before by Leif Eriksson, Thorfinn sailed up Greenland\u2019s coast, traversed the Davis Strait and turned south past Baffin Island to Newfoundland\u2014and perhaps beyond. Snorri, the son of Thorfinn and his wife, Gudrid, is thought to be the first European baby born in North America.<\/p>\n

Thorfinn and his band found their promised riches\u2014game, fish, timber and pasture\u2014and also encountered Native Americans, whom they denigrated as skraelings<\/em>, or \u201cwretched people.\u201d Little wonder, then, that relations with the Natives steadily deteriorated. About three years after starting out, Thorfinn\u2014along with his family and surviving crew\u2014abandoned the North American settlement, perhaps in a hail of arrows. (Archaeologists have found arrowheads with the remains of buried Norse explorers.) After sailing to Greenland and then Norway, Thorfinn and his family settled in Iceland, Thorfinn\u2019s childhood home.<\/p>\n


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George Decker \u2026 his rugged face  and his warm smile are two  things I will never forget.  Without him, L\u2019Anse Aux Meadows<\/div>\n
may never have been discovered.  \u201cjust a fe sounds over there that might interest you,\u201d he told the Ingsteds.  Which <\/div>\n
uncovered a great mystery.<\/div>\n

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No need to say that life is tough around St. Anthony.   In this picture you can hear the wind blow if you read carefully.<\/div>\n
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MYSTERY\u2026THAT IS THE ESSENCE OF L\u2019ANSE AUX MEADOWS.<\/div>\n

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1) The language used by the Greenlanders is extinct.  Gone.  Not ever used<\/div>\n
again.  That is the language of the Sagas\u2026the stories of these mysterious people.<\/div>\n
They lived in  a special historic moment when Greenland was actually green in places\u2026.<\/div>\n
a time when domestic animals could exist\u2026and humans had farms. T he population<\/div>\n
grew as the temperature increased for a few hundred years from he 10th to the 15th century.<\/div>\n

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2) Then another ice age slowly descended.  Living got harder and harder.  Where fields of<\/div>\n
hay had thrived short grasses grew.  And sometimes no grass could be harvested for winter<\/div>\n
months and animals starved.  As did the Greenlanders.  Population fell.  There is even<\/div>\n
evidence of inbreeding\u2026multiple handicaps\u2026bad times.  <\/div>\n

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3)<\/div>\n
The same happened in Europe.  Eventually no trading ships were sent to Greenland<\/div>\n
from Norway.  Even Iceland was cut off at times.  But the Greenlanders were forgotten.<\/div>\n
And by the time contact was resumed they were gone.  No Greenlanders.  Some evidence,<\/div>\n
i.e. occasional blue eyed Inuit, that some Greenlanders of Norse background mixed with <\/div>\n
the Inuit population.  But only a small suggestion as to the fate of the Greenlanders.<\/div>\n

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4)  Records were carved into planks\u2026these are the Vinland sagas\u2026written in an extinct<\/div>\n
language.   Some differences that are hard to explain.  Not all viking ships reached<\/div>\n
Newfoundland for instance.  The ships were open to the elements.  Somewhat like<\/div>\n
trying to sail through Atlantic storms\u2026ferocious storms\u2026in a huge rowboat.<\/div>\n

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5) Imagine yourself on board one of those Viking trading ships.  Perhaps 60 people\u2026mostly<\/div>\n
men but always a few women.  Strong women capable of leadership.  At least one woman<\/div>\n
pregnant with a baby due.   Sixty people trying to keep the ship afloat.  And in the centre<\/div>\n
of the boat were the animals\u2026cows, one bulll, sheep, one ram\u2026other creatures necessary<\/div>\n
for a colony  to survive.<\/div>\n

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6) We know this story to be true.  Although the actual facts are not always true.  These<\/div>\n
sagas were told from parent to child for 250 years before they were ever written down.<\/div>\n
And when they were written they were written in a language that no one understood because<\/div>\n
with the death of the last Greenlander the language of the people also died.<\/div>\n

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7) The history of L\u2019Anse Aux Meadows is clothed in mystery.  And it is <\/div>\n
mystery that that makes the place so exciting to visit.  Visit?  So few Canadians<\/div>\n
will ever see the place\u2026perhaps these pictures will help.<\/div>\n

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8) Our First Trip:  Marjorie was terrified.   Here is a shortened description.<\/div>\n
I hired a pilot in Cornerbrook who said he would fly us north to <\/div>\n
L\u2019Anse Aux Meadows one cold spring day when snow was coming and <\/div>\n
great chunks of ice floated down the Strait of Belle Isle.  Marjorie was<\/div>\n
wedged in the back of the Cessna.  On each side were cans of gasoline<\/div>\n
for the return trip.  The pilot used a road map.  Fog on the ground obscured<\/div>\n
the thread of the highway he was trying to follow.  \u201cWhat happens if<\/div>\n
we miss the landing field?\u201d  \u201cShort death among the icebergs!\u201d<\/div>\n
Marjorie commented often, \u201cAlan, we are going to die!\u201d<\/div>\n
We did not die.  But the pilot had trouble finding the tiny airfield at<\/div>\n
St Anthony.  And when he did land he got out tools to repair the engine.<\/div>\n
\u2026while winter winds soured the airstrip.  \u201cMust we fly back, Alan?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cOnly way out.  No bus service until summer!\u201d<\/div>\n

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And that is a short version.<\/div>\n

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9) Marjorie proof read these notes.  \u201cBut, Alan, you forgot to mention<\/div>\n
that the pilot tried to land at the wrong place\u2026 an abandoned airfield.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cJust trying to write a short version.  \u201cAnd you forgot to mention that<\/div>\n
his tools were blown all over the ground while he took the motor<\/div>\n
apart.\u201d  \u201cJust trying to shorten the story.\u201d  \u201cAnd you forgot he nearly ran<\/div>\n
out of gas while searching for the real airstrip.\u201d  \u201cYou are right\u2026those<\/div>\n
additions improve the story\u2026true events\u2026I will add them.\u201d<\/div>\n

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PICTURES OF L\u2019ANSE AUX MEADOWS \u2014AND THE TERROR<\/div>\n

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SOMEWHERE down below there were two airstrips\u2026lane abandoned and one real.  We found<\/div>\n
both of them.<\/div>\n

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This is the face of terror.  Not pretending.<\/div>\n

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These pictures were taken on our second trip to L\u2019Anse Aux Meadows in the short summer.   That was also an adventure as described in earlier Episodes.<\/div>\n

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Just imagine trying to thread your way to land through a sea filled with chunks of ice.   The people of the<\/div>\n
Vinland sagas faced ice but not nearly as much as we do today.  They lived in a period of warmer temperatures<\/div>\n
around the world.  A period when trees grew here\u2026where today only scrub plants survive along with some badly<\/div>\n
beaten trees where shelter is found.<\/div>\n

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Like I said.  If you want to put some mystery in your life, take this trip.  Funny thing\u2026try dropping the \u201ct\u201d out of the<\/div>\n
word \u2018Mystery\u201d.  The result is \u2018Mysery\u2019\u2026i.e. \u201cMisery\u201d<\/div>\n

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No one has ever asked me to lead a trip to L\u2019Anse Aux Meadows.  Little wonder.  There was only<\/div>\n
room for two passengers on our first trip along with gas cans filled to the brink with gas for<\/div>\n
the return trip.  And a motor that kept burping.<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
April 10, 2022<\/div>\n

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WHO WAS GUDRID?<\/div>\n

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Gudrid Thorbjarnard\u00f3ttir<\/b> (Old Norse<\/a>: Gu\u00f0r\u00ed\u00f0r v\u00ed\u00f0f\u01eb<\/b>rla \u00deorbjarnard\u00f3ttir<\/i><\/span> <\/small>[\u02c8\u0261u\u00f0\u02ccfri\u02d0\u00f0r \u02c8wi\u02d0\u00f0\u02ccf\u0254rl\u0251 \u02c8\u03b8or\u02ccbj\u0251rn\u0251r\u02ccdo\u02d0t\u02d0er]<\/a><\/span>; Modern Icelandic<\/a>: Gu\u00f0r\u00ed\u00f0u<\/b>r v\u00ed\u00f0f\u00f6<\/b>rla \u00deorbjarnard\u00f3ttir<\/i><\/span> <\/small>[\u02c8kv\u028f\u00f0\u02ccri\u02d0\u00f0\u028fr \u02c8vi\u00f0\u02ccf\u0153(r)tla \u02c8\u03b8\u0254r\u02ccpja(r)tnar\u02cctouht\u026ar\u0325]<\/a><\/span>; born in 980\u20131019) was an Icelandic<\/a> explorer, born at Laugarbrekka<\/a> in Sn\u00e6fellsnes<\/a>, Iceland<\/a>.<\/div>\n
She appears in the Saga of Erik the Red<\/a><\/i> and the Saga of the Greenlanders<\/a><\/i>, known collectively as the Vinland sagas<\/a><\/i>. She and her husband \u00deorfinnur Karlsefni<\/a> led an expedition to Vinland<\/a> where their son Snorri \u00deorfinnsson<\/a> was born, believed to be the first European birth in the Americas<\/a> outside of Greenland<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
” According to<\/span> <\/span>The Saga of the Greenlanders<\/i>, after their marriage, and at Gudrid’s urging, the two led an attempt to settle V\u00ednland with sixty men, five women, and a cargo of various livestock (while it is implied in<\/span> <\/span>The Saga of Eirik the Red<\/i> <\/span>that she accompanies him, Gudrid is never actually mentioned in the account of the journey). While in V\u00ednland, the couple had a son whom they named<\/span> <\/span>Snorri Thorfinnsson<\/a>, who is the first European reported to be born in the Western Hemisphere. There is speculation about the birth date of Snorri with birth years such as 1005, 1009, and 1012 being postulated, but all sources agree that he was born between 1005 and 1013. According to the<\/span> <\/span>Vinland sagas<\/a>, when Snorri was 3 years old, the family left<\/span> <\/span>Vinland<\/a> <\/span>because of hostilities with<\/span> <\/span>indigenous peoples<\/a> <\/span>(called<\/span> <\/span>Skr\u00e6lingar<\/i><\/a> <\/span>by the settlers, meaning “barbarians”). The family returned to the Glaumb\u00e6r farm in<\/span> <\/span>Seyluhreppur<\/a>, Iceland.<\/span>[4]<\/a><\/sup>[5]<\/a><\/sup>[6]<\/a>\u201d<\/sup><\/div>\n

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The sagas vary in the number of men and women who sailed to Vinland.  Some say 60 in one saga..and hundreds in another.  What the sags agree upon is he fact that both<\/font><\/sup><\/div>\n
men and women sailed to Vinland along with their domestic animals.  The intent seems to have been settlement.  Why did it fail?  Was there just t oo much killing of local inhabitants\u2026the skraelings (barbarians).<\/font><\/sup><\/div>\n
The full truth will never be known.<\/div>\n

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The Vinland sagas are two stories recorded 250 years after the events they describe.  The stories are different but describe the same event which was the<\/div>\n
Norse settlement of Vinland around the year 1,000 AD.  So the sagas are hearsay evidence.  Stories told year after year for two and a half centuries Stories<\/div>\n
told in a language that became extinct when the settlement of Greenland was abandoned in the 15th century.  Stories that got exaggerated,  The stories were carved in an<\/div>\n
 ancient language.  Now extinct.  Why was Greenland abandoned?   Some source say drought was a problem.  No  grass to put in barns.  No grass meant that farm animals starved to death in the long inters.  Other explanations<\/div>\n
including the suggestions of inbeeding our to the small population.  I seem to remember an excavated grave where the body was odd.  Not normal.<\/div>\n

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What a mystery?  Little wonder that it is possible to lose oneself while reading Farley Mowat\u2019s book, WestViking.<\/div>\n

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Below are both of the Vinland sagas\u20261) the saga of the Greenlanders and 2) the saga of Eric th<\/span>e Red.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

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THE VINLAND SAGAS \u2014 TRANSLATED<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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The beginning of The Saga of Erik the Red<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The main sources of information about the Norse voyages to Vinland are two Icelandic sagas<\/a>, the Saga of Erik the Red<\/a><\/i> and the Saga of the Greenlanders<\/a><\/i>, which are known collectively as the Vinland Sagas. These stories were preserved by oral tradition until they were written down some 250 years after the events they describe. The existence of two versions of the story shows some of the challenges of using traditional sources for history, because they share a large number of story elements but use them in different ways. A possible example is the reference to two different men named Bjarni who are blown off course. A brief summary of the plots of the two sagas, given at the end of this article, shows other examples.<\/div>\n
The sagas report that a considerable number of Vikings were in parties that visited Vinland. Thorfinn Karlsefni<\/a>‘s crew consisted of 140 or 160 people according to the Saga of Erik the Red<\/a>, 60 according to the Saga of the Greenlanders<\/a>. Still according to the latter, Leif Ericson<\/a> led a company of 35, Thorvald Eiriksson<\/a> a company of 30, and Helgi and Finnbogi<\/a> had 30 crew members.[17]<\/a><\/sup><\/div>\n
According to the Saga of Erik the Red, \u00deorfinnr “Karlsefni” \u00de\u00f3r\u00f0arson<\/a> and a company of 160 men, going south from Greenland traversed an open stretch of sea, found Helluland<\/a>, another stretch of sea, Markland<\/a>, another stretch of sea, the headland of Kjalarnes<\/i>, the Wonderstrands<\/a>, Straumfj\u00f6r\u00f0<\/a> and at last a place called H\u00f3p<\/i>, a bountiful place where no snow fell during winter. However, after several years away from Greenland, they chose to turn back to their homes when they realized that they would otherwise face an indefinite conflict with the natives.<\/div>\n
S<\/span>aga of the Greenlanders<\/span><\/div>\n

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Church of Hvalsey<\/a>, one of the best preserved remnants from the Norse settlement in Greenland.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Simiutaq Island<\/a>, Greenland<\/a>, as seen from the Davis Strait<\/a>. This has been suggested to be a suitable starting point for a crossing to Canada[18]<\/a><\/sup><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Baffin Island, possible location of Helluland<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Leif Ericson U.S. commemorative stamp<\/a>, issued 1968<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In Gr\u00e6nlendinga saga<\/i><\/a> or the ‘Saga of the Greenlanders’, Bjarni Herj\u00f3lfsson<\/a> accidentally discovered the new land when traveling from Norway to visit his father, in the second year of Erik the Red’s Greenland settlement (about 986 CE). When he managed to reach Greenland, making land at Herjolfsness<\/a>, the site of his father’s farm, he remained there for the rest of his father’s life and didn’t return to Norway until about 1000 CE. There, he told his overlord (the Earl, also named Erik) about the new land and was criticized for his long delay in reporting this. On his return to Greenland he retold the story and inspired Leif Eriksson to organize an expedition, which retraced in reverse the route Bjarni had followed, past a land of flat stones (Helluland<\/a>) and a land of forests (Markland<\/a>). After having sailed another two days across open sea, the expedition found a headland with an island just off the shore, with a nearby pool, accessible to ships at high tide, in an area where the sea was shallow with sandbanks. Here the explorers landed and established a base which can plausibly be matched to L’Anse aux Meadows; except that the winter was described as mild, not freezing. One day an old family servant, Tyrker<\/a>, went missing and was found mumbling to himself. He eventually explained that he found grapes\/currants. In the spring, Leif returned to Greenland with a shipload of timber, towing a boatload of grapes\/currants. On the way home, he spotted another ship aground on the rocks, rescued the crew and later salvaged the cargo. A second expedition, one ship of about 40 men led by Leif’s brother Thorvald, sets out in the autumn after Leif’s return and stayed over three winters at the new base (Leifsb\u00fa\u00f0ir<\/i><\/a>(-budir), meaning Leif’s temporary shelters), exploring the west coast of the new land during the first summer, and the east coast during the second, running aground and losing the ship’s keel<\/a> on a headland they christen Keel Point (Kjalarnes<\/i>). Further south, at a point where Thorvald wanted to establish a settlement, the Greenlanders encountered some of the local inhabitants (Skr\u00e6lings<\/a><\/i>) and killed them, following which they were attacked by a large force in hide boats, and Thorvald died from an arrow-wound. After the exploration party returned to base, the Greenlanders decided to return home the following spring.<\/div>\n
Thorstein, Leif’s brother, married Gudrid, widow of the captain rescued by Leif, then led a third expedition to bring home Thorvald’s body, but drifted off course and spent the whole summer sailing the Atlantic. Spending the winter as a guest at a farm on Greenland with Gudrid, Thorstein died of disease, reviving just long enough to make a prophecy about her future as a Christian. The next winter, Gudrid married a visiting Icelander named Thorfinn Karlsefni, who agreed to undertake a major expedition to Vinland, taking livestock. On arrival, they soon found a beached whale which sustained them until spring. In the summer, they were visited by some of the local inhabitants who were scared by the Greenlanders’ bull, but happy to trade goods for milk and other products. In autumn, Gudrid gave birth to a son, Snorri. Shortly after this, one of the local people tried to take a weapon and was killed. The explorers were then attacked in force, but managed to survive with only minor casualties by retreating to a well-chosen defensive position, a short distance from their base. One of the local people picked up an iron axe, tried it, and threw it away.<\/div>\n
The explorers returned to Greenland in summer with a cargo of grapes\/currants and hides. Shortly thereafter, a ship captained by two Icelanders arrived in Greenland, and Freydis<\/a>, daughter of Eric the Red, persuaded them to join her in an expedition to Vinland. When they arrived to Vinland, the brothers stored their belongings in Leif Eriksson’s houses, which angered Freydis and she banished them. She then visited them during the winter and asked for their ship, claiming that she wanted to go back to Greenland, which the brothers happily agreed to. However, Freydis went back and told her husband the exact opposite, which lead to the killing, at Freydis’ order, of all the Icelanders, including five women, as they lay sleeping. In the spring, the Greenlanders returned home with a good cargo, but Leif found out the truth about the Icelanders. That was the last Vinland expedition recorded in the saga.<\/div>\n

Saga of Erik the Red<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/font><\/h3>\n
In the other version of the story, Eir\u00edks saga rau\u00f0a<\/i> or the Saga of Erik the Red<\/a>, Leif Ericsson accidentally discovered the new land when traveling from Norway back to Greenland after a visit to his overlord, King Olaf Tryggvason, who commissioned him to spread Christianity in the colony. Returning to Greenland with samples of grapes\/currants, wheat and timber, he rescued the survivors from a wrecked ship and gained a reputation for good luck; his religious mission was a swift success. The next spring, Thorstein, Leif’s brother, lead an expedition to the new land, but drifted off course and spent the whole summer sailing the Atlantic. On his return, he met and married Gudrid, one of the survivors from a ship which made land at Herjolfsnes after a difficult voyage from Iceland. Spending the winter as a guest at a farm on Greenland with Gudrid, Thorstein died of disease, reviving just long enough to make a prophecy about her future as a far-traveling Christian. The next winter, Gudrid married a visiting Icelander named Thorfinn Karlsefni, who, with his business partner Snorri Thorbrandsson, agreed to undertake a major expedition to the new land, taking livestock with them. Also contributing ships for this expedition were another pair of visiting Icelanders, Bjarni Grimolfsson and Thorhall Gamlason, and Leif’s brother and sister Thorvald and Freydis, with her husband Thorvard. Sailing past landscapes of flat stones (Helluland<\/a>) and forests (Markland<\/a>) they rounded a cape where they saw the keel of a boat (Kjalarnes), then continued past some extraordinarily long beaches (Fur\u00f0ustrandir<\/i><\/a>) before they landed and sent out two runners to explore inland. After three days, the pair returned with samples of grapes\/currants and wheat. After they sailed a little farther, the expedition landed at an inlet next to an area of strong currents (Straumfj\u00f6r\u00f0<\/a>), with an island just off shore (Straumsey), and they made camp. The winter months were harsh, and food was in short supply. One day an old family servant, Thorhall the Hunter (who had not become Christian), went missing and was found mumbling to himself. Shortly afterwards, a beached whale was found, which Thorhall claimed had been provided in answer to his praise of the pagan gods. The explorers found that eating it made them ill, so they prayed to the Christian God, and shortly afterwards the weather improved.<\/div>\n
When spring arrived, Thorhall Gamlason, the Icelander, wanted to sail north around Kjalarnes to seek Vinland, while Thorfinn Karlsefni preferred to sail southward down the east coast. Thorhall took only nine men, and his vessel is swept out into the ocean by contrary winds; he and his crew never returned. Thorfinn and Snorri, with Freydis (plus possibly Bjarni), sailed down the east coast with 40 men or more and established a settlement on the shore of a seaside lake, protected by barrier islands and connected to the open ocean by a river which was navigable by ships only at high tide. The settlement was known as H\u00f3p<\/i>, and the land abounded with grapes\/currants and wheat. The teller of this saga was uncertain whether the explorers remained here over the next winter (said to be very mild) or for only a few weeks of summer. One morning they saw nine hide boats; the local people (Skr\u00e6lings<\/i>) examined the Norse ships and departed in peace. Later a much larger flotilla of boats arrived, and trade commenced (Karlsefni forbad the sale of weapons). One day, the local traders were frightened by the sudden arrival of the Greenlanders’ bull, and they stayed away for three weeks. They then attacked in force, but the explorers managed to survive with only minor casualties, by retreating inland to a defensive position, a short distance from their camp. Pregnancy slowed Freydis down, so she picked up the sword of a fallen companion and brandished it against her bare breast, scaring the attackers into withdrawal. One of the local people picked up an iron axe, tried using it, but threw it away. The explorers subsequently abandoned the southern camp and sailed back to Straumsfjord, killing five natives they encountered on the way, lying asleep in hide sacks. <\/div>\n
Karlsefni, accompanied by Thorvald Eriksson and others, sailed around Kjalarnes and then south, keeping land on their left side, hoping to find Thorhall. After sailing for a long time, while moored on the south side of a west-flowing river, they were shot at by a one-footed man<\/a>, and Thorvald died from an arrow-wound. Once they reached Markland, the men encountered five natives, of whom they kidnapped two boys, baptizing them and teaching them their own language.[19]<\/a><\/sup> The explorers returned to Straumsfjord, but disagreements during the following winter lead to the abandonment of the venture. On the way home, the ship of Bjarni the Icelander was swept into the Sea of Worms (Ma\u00f0kasj\u00e1r in Sk\u00e1lholtsb\u00f3k, Ma\u00f0ksj\u00e1r in Hauksb\u00f3k) by contrary winds. The marine worms destroyed the hull, and only those who escaped in the ship’s worm-proofed boat survived. This was the last Vinland expedition recorded in the saga.[20]<\/a><\/sup><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Why Didn\u2019t They Stay?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Viking presence in North America had dwindled to nothing long before Columbus began island hopping in the Caribbean. Why did the Norse fail where other Europeans succeeded? After all, Vikings were consummate seamen and peerless raiders who populated marginally inhabitable Greenland and who would push their way into the British Isles and France. And with their iron weapons and tools, they had a technological edge over America\u2019s indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n

Several explanations have been advanced for the Vikings\u2019 abandonment of North America. Perhaps there were too few of them to sustain a settlement. Or they may have been forced out by American Indians. While the European conquest was abetted by infectious diseases that spread from the invaders to the Natives, who succumbed in great numbers because they had no acquired immunity, early Icelanders may not have carried similar infections.<\/p>\n

But more and more scholars focus on climate change as the reason the Vikings couldn.t make a go of it in the New World. The scholars suggest that the western Atlantic suddenly turned too cold even for Vikings. The great sailing trips of Leif and Thorfinn took place in the first half of the 11th century, during a climatic period in the North Atlantic called the Medieval Warming, a time of long, warm summers and scarce sea ice. Beginning in the 12th century, however, the weather started to deteriorate with the first frissons<\/em> of what scholars call the Little Ice Age. Tom McGovern, an archaeologist at Hunter College in New York City, has spent more than 20 years reconstructing the demise of a Norse settlement on Greenland. In the middle of the 14th century, the colony suffered eight harsh winters in a row, culminating, in 1355, in what may have been the worst in a century. McGovern says the Norse ate their livestock and dogs before turning to whatever else they could find in their final winter there. The settlers might have survived if they had mimicked the Inuit, who hunted ringed seal in the winter and prospered during the Little Ice Age.<\/p>\n

With sea ice making the routes from Iceland to Greenland and back impassable for Norse ships for much of the year, the Little Ice Age probably curtailed further Norse traffic to North America. Iceland also fared badly during this time. By 1703, weather-related food shortages and epidemics of plague and smallpox had reduced Iceland\u2019s population  in 1250.<\/p>\n


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<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 567   VINLAND…THE MYSTERY OF L’ANSE AUX MEADOWS\u2026\u201dAlan, we are going to die!” alan skeoch April 5, 2022 Imagine living here\u2026under a sod covered roof\u2026in a house buried in the snows of winter. VINLAND \u2014 THERE IS NO MYSTERY QUITE LIKE THE VINLAND SAGAS Vinland is to me, the consummate mystery in Canadian history. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}