L'Anse aux Meadows Viking Site

From Blanc Sablon, Quebec, we took onto a ferry for a 1-1/2 hour ride across (eastward) the Strait of Belle Isle to St Barbe, Newfoundland.  Once on the other side, we then proceeded northward to just shy of the extreme northern end of Newfoundland, Quirpon, where we camped at a rustic RV park for three brisk nights.

The first morning, we set out early for L’Anse aux Meadows, an authenticated Norse settlement dating from approximately 1000 A.D. ( take that, Christopher Columbus! ), which was discovered in 1960 by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad.  This is the oldest known European settlement of the New World.

At the site, Parks Canada has constructed recreations of the settlement in the authentic Viking style, using sod walls and log roofs covered with sod.

And frequent decorative wood carvings.

and there were local folk, employed by Parks Canada, who dressed in authentic attire and were extremely knowledgable of the history of the site and its inhabitants, who retold the history and explained the tools, equipment and attire, 

and warriors with their battle gear, all authentic to the time.

And large primitive looms for weaving wool (note the rocks at the bottom),

Sod walls,

a smithy with dual bellows.   And note the walls are all of sod, smoked to a grey color.

 This fellow, known as Ragknoor, was extremely cordial, informative, and enticed one of the boys to assist him by pumping the bellows while he (Ragknoor) created a nail from a piece of iron.  In the process, Ragknoor related the traditions of 1000 A.D. to todays traditions, and created a great learning experience for the boy, and for all of us.  What an educator (first) and entertainer (second).

And wonder of wonders, we found that the Vikings (Norse) already knew they could find iron (bog iron) just under the plant growth in the bogs.  Evidently, the plants create sufficient acid to dissolve iron out of the underlying stones, and resident bacteria then change the dissolved iron back into a solid bog iron.  But the small, almost pea sized bits of iron must be laboriously gathered, then dried, the processed in a kiln to melt it and remove the slag using lots and lots of charcoal which the Norse also had to manufacture)then beaten to further form it into solid iron, then reheated (more charcoal!) and formed into the desired object.  Here at Vinlandia, it’s estimated they made perhaps as much as 2 pounds of iron, probably for nails to repair their boats.

Back at the museum, there is a picture of a map, copied in the 1500‘s from a now-lost original, which shows Brittain, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and named land masses that correspond to today’s northernmost Quebec, plus Labrador, and a north-pointing peninsula (Promontorium) that appears to correspond to the northern end of Newfoundland, and at its very tip is a label, “Vinlandia” - Vinland, precisely where the Ingstad's found the Norse settlement!

This was a truly fascinating adventure and educational experience for me.

Upon leaving L’Anse aux Meadows, we immediately spied yet another iceberg, with a heavy fog bank lying behind it.

Farther on down the road, we found some more of an interesting tradition in this area.  The residents will create and fence off a small garden along the cleared utility lines, with no signs of who owns it, no real attempt to keep out the animals, and the garden usually is nowhere near a house, but they all seem to be doing quite well.

And we also so unnumerable perfectly stack piles of next winter’s firewood.

And as we returned home, the afternoon fogbank was beginning to roll in, foretelling the heavy fog we would enjoy that evening.  Now, we could really use some of that firewood!