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Published: July 17th 2016
Welcome to Vinland
There were no trees in Greenland an.d no grapes in Newfoundland ... but maybe there were small grapes in New Brunswick/MaineJuly 16, 2016
The Norse, Vikings means raiders, came to Vinland from Greenland under the leadership of Lief Ericksson. A bronzed statue in the village of L'Anse aux Meadows stands gazing out to sea much the same as the statue in Trondheim Norway ... actually the two statues are copies of one another. Both have been digitally immortalized ... LOL.
In this area of the Northern Peninsula are found the town of L'Anse aux Meadows and the Parks Canada Historical site, a UNESCO Heritage Site, L'Anse aux Meadows.
In the Visitors Centre admission is paid and a guided tour can be had for an additional fee. Two couples were also about to pay and the attendant asked if we were together because than the fee would be much lower ...four dollars is four dollars ...paid for the L'Anse aux Meadows souvenir patch.
The people who came to L'Anse aux Meadows were one hundred from the five hundred that lived in Greenland.
The tour leader made frequent stops to explain; the Norse presence timeline, the easy access to the bay for a Nnorse ship, the type of
Lief Ericksson
...immortalized on two sides of the same ocean activity that would have been present in the indentations found along the boardwalk (house, ship shed, forge, animals shelter, woodworking space), the practice of extracting iron from the bog and forming nails used to repair ships, the use of the peat in the bog to build houses, the reason for a very large indentation that was surely the house of the leader, perhaps Ericksson himself, the fact that indigenous and Norse people had little to no contact and the fact that the settlement was never meant to be permanent and basically lasted only ten years.
The tour ended at the place where a recreation of the settlement has been built. The peat houses, the rooves of thin tree slats covered with peat and birch bark and grass sod stand in a “meadow” within view of the sea. Inside the buildings a loom room, a storage facility for fishing gear and a living area made comfortable with animal skins and woolen blankets can be sat in and walked around about.
"Butternuts and worked pieces of butternut wood-a tree that was not native to Newfoundland but was present one thousand years ago in northern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick-were also
Anne Stine & Helge Instad
They had a vision and followed the dream!
TANKSBETOGOT found. This discovery indicates that the people who lived at L'Anse aux Meadows had traveled further south into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and had brought back nuts and wood native to those southern areas and were sampling the region's resources as described in the sagas. These finds suggest that the L'Anse aux Meadows site was a base-camp or gateway to the rich lands around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which is likely the Vinland of the sagas."
The evidence of
butternut shells indicates that the Norse went further than this settlement found in the sixties. "Dr.
Anne Stine Ingstad (11 February 1918 – 6 November 1997) was a
Norwegian archaeologist who, along with her husband Dr.
Helge Ingstad, discovered the remains of a
Viking settlement at
L'Anse aux Meadows in the
Canadian province of
Newfoundland and Labrador in 1960." wikepedia
In the peat built compound are found four people dressed in Norse style clothing. They are ready to explain differing aspects of life as it was lived in the medievil times of this settlement. One of the women demonstrated knitting with one needle. Apparently two hundred and forty different stitches can be accomplished with this one large made out of bone
Peat Houses Compound
... reconstruction that has to be recontructed regularly needle having a hole at one end.
Nålebinding (
Danish: literally "binding with a needle" or "needle-binding", also
naalbinding,
nålbinding,
nålbindning or
naalebinding) is a fabric creation technique predating both
knitting and
crochet. Also known in English as "knotless netting," "knotless knitting,"
or "single needle knitting," the technique is distinct from crochet in that it involves passing the full length of the working thread through each loop, unlike crochet where the work is formed only of loops, never involving the free end. It also differs from knitting in that lengths must be pieced together during the process of nålebinding, rather than a continuous strand of yarn that can easily be pulled out.
Archaeological specimens of fabric made by nålebinding can be difficult to distinguish from knitted fabric.
Nålebinding is still practiced by women of the Nanti tribe, an indigenous people of the Camisea region of
Peru. They use it to make bracelets. Nålebinding also remains popular in the
Scandinavian countries as well as in the
Balkans.
This challenge cannot go untried!
One of the finds made while excavating this site ... not all has been revealed and the excavations
The Roofing System
... it is unknown but examples from the old world helped to make this a possibillity. have been protected and filled in again ... was a pile of fist sized rocks all weighing the same. These rocks were used to act as weights for the weft of the weaving. In the loom room a surprisingly interesting loom has been recreated.
It was Canada Parks Day, the Beaver was in residence, the hot dogs were roasted over an open fire ... marshmallows too ... and the whole excursion into L'Anse aux Meadows, the Norse settlement in Newfoundland was a great success.
Back in the Visitors' Centre a twenty minute film played to further emphasize the importance and the significance of this UNESCO World Heritage site. Two bus tours were milling about all eating cake freely given because of Parks Day. Further information could be read in display cases. One case had examples of all the widely produced books, comics, action figures, movies, games and references used to make a pretty penny from the idea of “the Vikings”.
Many firsts have been celebrated at this site ... the most important mentioned was the use of carbon dating of artifacts. According to the tour leader this method was developed and used at the site of L'Anse
aux Meadows. And L'Anse aux Meadows was the first declared UNESCO World Heritage Site in Canada in the same year as Yellowstone et al.
The touring of this site took the better part of the afternoon.
While in the village of L'Anse aux Meadows a man with a bag full of fish was spied.
“Are the fish being sold at the Wharf?”
“Why? Do you want some?” and with that a cod was fished out of the plastic sack and freely given.
Yipee! Fresh cod tonite. Only how to fillet it was the next challenge.
One of the men in the camp office donned plastic gloves used the fillet knife from the van and proceeded to service the cod.
“This knife isn't very sharp.”
“Sorry. It is protection from possible attack.”
“Won't do much damage being this dull.”
The cod was delicious fried in butter with potatoes on the side and a salad of red cabbage ...red cabbage was actually found on a grocery store shelf back in Baie Verte on the Baie Verte Peninsula. Same area where the two moose were seen sauntering across the highway.
The Loom
Sails were made of wool ...??? Back on the Northern Peninsula and near L'Anse aux Meadows in the Viking RV Campground the day ended well with great feelings of satisfaction.
The second of the four most advertised places/things in Newfoundland had been visited.
The Big Four: Gros Morne ... L'Anse aux Meadows ... Jelly Bean Row ... the clothes waving in the wind. There is no going back to St. John's to see the jelleybeans!
Sunday was a day for laundry ...last time to wash bedding ... and a day for visiting the local United Church. The small church is within walking distance ... like less than a city block ... and the pastor presented a somewhat straying eloquent talk about the past weeks bad news. He quoted Amos ... have to look that one up!
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Sue Schwass
non-member comment
WOW!! LUCKY YOU
Hi Barbara. Thanks for such an interesting blog. Would love to visit L'Anse Aux Meadows too as have heard so much about it. Cheers, Sue