A Land Chanced Upon

The Vikings in North America, Part II: Vinland

“Once he had made ready, Leif set sail. After being tossed about at sea for a long time he chanced upon land where he had not expected any to be found. Fields of self-sown wheat and vines were growing there; also, there were trees known as maple, and they took specimens of all of them.” - The Sagas of the Icelanders (Jane Smiley Translation)

On a windswept, extremely remote and somewhat barren northern corner of the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1960s, archaeologists Anne Stine Ingstad and her husband, Helge Ingstad, where chasing an echo. It was the echo of a story, largely forgotten by the wider world, in which intrepid Scandinavian sailors from Iceland and Greenland reached the shores of a far westerly land, where the weather was agreeable and all manner of natural resources were in abundance. They called the place “Vinland” (Wine Land), after the plump, wild grapes they supposedly found there. This story had long been part of the oral traditions of the people of Iceland and Greenland, and later, they would be recorded for the first time in writing, in Iceland, in Eiriks Saga Rouða (The Saga of Eirik the Red) and Grænlendinga Saga (The Saga of the Greenlanders).

The story of Vinland, almost since the time in which it was written down, was largely considered a myth; A clever bit of propaganda, engineered by a few ambitious Norseman looking to build a reputation for themselves. As such, the story was, more or less, discounted and lost within the larger narrative of European History.

But what if it were true?

What if the Vikings really had discovered a land west of Greenland and brought tales and more back with them? Certainly by 1961 CE, it was well known that an entire set of continents lay west of Europe across the Atlantic. Europeans had been traveling to and settling there since the 15th century. The narrative, taught to school children in North America, was that an Italian merchantman and explorer, sailing under the flag of Spain, had discovered the “New World” in 1492, and there had been little reason to doubt it. It was certainly far more thoroughly and reliably recorded than the vague and quasi-fantastical stories written down in the aforementioned sagas.

What the Ingstads discovered at L’Anse aux Meadows would overturn that well-established account of first European contact with North America forever.

Fishermen, local to Newfoundland, lead the Ingstads to a location believed, by those who called the area home, to be an “old Indian village”, where the remains of ancient human habitation where still clearly apparent. There were inconsistencies, however, with the idea that this location was established by people indigenous to Newfoundland, and the Ingstads began excavations as soon as possible. When the digging was done, a small hamlet, consistent with those found in Iceland and coastal Greenland had been unearthed. The settlement was composed of eight structures grouped into three complexes that included residential dwellings, workshops, and facilities for ship repair, all clearly Scandinavian in origin.

The site was capable of sustaining up to one hundred individuals but seems to have been occupied only temporarily and intermittently, albeit over a span of nearly a century. Later theories would interpret this evidence as indicative of a seasonal lumber camp, or waystation for ship repair during possible longer voyages. Lumber was scarce in Greenland and Iceland and mostly had to be imported from mainland Scandinavia. The northeastern coast of North America had an abundance of lumber, and it was far closer to the Greenlanders and Icelanders than their homelands.

Aside from the structures themselves, there was very little other direct evidence of Scandinavian material culture, but what evidence did exist was definitive. Spindle whorls and sewing needles indicative of traditional Norse textile production where present, as well as a smithy which produced tools from bog iron (metallurgy was an unfamiliar science to the indigenous cultures of North America at the time the settlement was founded). A glass bead and cloak pin from mainland Europe were also found, indicating contact with the wider North Atlantic trade network. Timber, shaped with iron tools for the construction of structures and for ship repair were present at the site, further confirming that L’Anse aux Meadows could be nothing other than a medieval Scandinavian settlement.

So how did the Vikings get there?

To answer that question, we must leave the L’Anse aux Meadows of the 20th century behind, and travel back nearly a thousand years, to the stories told by the Viking explorers who made the journey. Those tales, which had long been dismissed as folklore, seem now to be worthy of revisiting.

The tale begins with a somewhat hapless figure known as Bjarni Herjólfsson, an Icelandic merchant, who, upon returning to Iceland after a long trip to Norway, discovers that his father has left Iceland to join Eirik the Red in his settlement efforts in Greenland. Bjarni, perhaps ill-advised and knowing very little about Greenland at this time, decides to join his father in immigrating. He set sail almost immediately but encountered bad weather not long into his voyage and was blown off course. Sometime later, when the weather cleared, Bjarni claimed to have found himself on the shores of a densely forested land. Greenland, Bjarni knew, was devoid of trees, so this new coast could not be that of Greenland. He did not make landfall there, instead electing to correct his course and sail to meet his father. He eventually reached the Eastern Settlement in Greenland with tales of his mysterious land sighting to the west.

It seems that the Greenlanders were not at all impressed with Bjarni’s poor effort at further exploration.

"Bjarni came in for a lot of criticism for his lack of curiosity about the lands he had discovered, but he was a merchant not an explorer. When Bjarni gave up trading, Leif Eriksson bought his ship and began to prepare an expedition to follow-up on his discoveries.” - John Haywood, Northmen: The Viking Saga, 793-1241 AD

It would seem that Leif Eiriksson, son of Eirik the Red, had a much more adventurous spirit than Bjarni. With a new ship and the blessing of his father, Leif set out to see what could be seen of Bjarni’s supposed land to the west. It wasn’t long before he and his crew confirmed what Bjarni claimed to have seen. During their first voyage, they discovered the “Three Lands” mentioned in the Sagas. First came Helluland (likely Baffin Island), a barren and rocky island, offering little of use or interest. Then followed Markland (likely Labrador), named for its dense forests, and perhaps the very land that Bjarni had first set eyes on. Then, finally, Vinland.

"Leif pressed on still further south and discovered a land where grapes grew wild and the rivers teemed with salmon. Leif decided to call this land Vinland (‘Wine Land’).” - John Haywood, Northmen: The Viking Saga, 793-1241 AD

Here, Leif and his crew spent some time and built a temporary settlement that later became known as Leifsbuðir (‘Leif’s booths’). This may have been the predecessor to the settlement that would become the one discovered by the Ingstads at L’Anse aux Meadows, but this cannot be proven; questions have arisen as to whether it was an actual settlement or not, as it is further north than the range of Atlantic Salmon. However, the narratives in the Sagas are somewhat unreliable. It could be that Leifsbuðir was further south than L’Anse aux Meadows, or it could be that sightings of salmon where the Vikings built their settlement were exaggerated or fabricated. After all, grapes were also unlikely to have grown wild anywhere that the Vikings could have reasonably made landfall on the North American continent.

More voyages of exploration and potential settlement were also undertaken after Leif’s initial voyage. His brother, Thorvald, made a thorough exploration of Vinland as well. During this voyage, Thorvald would meet with misfortune that would eventually lead to his death. First, the keel of his ship was broken, and he and his crew had to spend some time making repairs before they could consider further exploration or heading home. Once the ship was seaworthy again, they elected to continue exploring.

After one expedition in which the crew delved further inland, upon returning to their ships, they found an ambush waiting. They were assailed by nine men, whom the Sagas call Skrælingr (A probably derogatory term for the natives of North America, most likely from an Old Norse descriptor of the animal skins they wore), who hid under hide boats before making their assault. The skirmish went poorly for the natives, and Thorvald and his crew killed all but one of them. After this initial negative first contact, Thorvald and his crew set about preparing to set sail again. During this, they were nearly caught unaware when the natives arrived in force to retaliate. Another battle was fought, and Thorvald was hit by an arrow; a wound from which he would later perish. Thorvald might possibly be the first European to have been buried on North American soil, though his body may have been retrieved and returned to Greenland at a later date.

Scandinavian relations with indigenous North Americans seemed to have been frequently fraught, though evidence of peaceful trade also exists, both in the accounts found in the Sagas, and in archaeological evidence.

"In another Greenland grave, traces have been found of a robe made from the hide of a North American buffalo—a species native to the plains. This can only have reached the east coast via internal trade, before finally going home with a Norse Greenlander, who may have liked it enough to be buried in it." - Neil Price, Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

It is probable that the indigenous group that the Scandinavians had the most contact with was the Beothuk culture. The Beothuk, despite occasional peaceful trade efforts, were often in conflict with Scandinavian settlers and explorers, due either to cultural/linguistic misunderstandings, or to the disposition of either themselves or the colonizers. The Beothuk would go on to have a disastrous history with Europeans in general, long after the departure of the Vikings from North America. By the early 19th century, the group would be declared entirely extinct, in large part because of the activities of European colonizers.

After Thorvald’s ill-fated expedition, others would make the attempt to explore and colonize Vinland. The most notable of these efforts was the expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefni, who, with the blessing of Leif Eiriksson, would undertake the largest settlement effort of all.

"A few years later Thorfinn Karlsefni set out from Greenland to found a permanent colony at Leifsbuðir. He took with him his wife Gudrid, sixty men and five women, and a variety of livestock. The party spent an uneventful winter during which Gudrid gave birth to a son, Snorri, the first European to be born in America." - John Haywood, Northmen: The Viking Saga, 793-1241 AD

Despite claims by earlier explorers that the weather in Vinland was temperate enough for cattle to graze all year-round, opportunities for animal husbandry were likely not the main draw for settlement in the new land. As stated above, lumber was nonexistent in Greenland, and Iceland had long since depleted its own reserves, forcing both to import their wood from mainland Europe. The discovery and exploration of Vinland had the potential to dramatically change the dynamic. Anyone able to successfully make a go of it in Vinland had the potential to become very rich indeed, which, even after the conversion of Greenland to Christianity (which had already occurred by this time) was a major motivator for medieval Scandinavians.

Thorfinn’s colony is a good candidate for the origin of the archaeological site at L’Anse aux Meadows, though whether it was truly established on the site of Leif Eirikson’s original camp, Leifsbuðir, remains to be proven. If indeed L’Anse aux Meadows is Thorfinn’s settlement, then evidence found there would suggest that the colony outlived its founder by a considerable number of years. Perhaps it was, for nearly a century, a bustling, if small, center for a booming lumber trade. Some small discoveries have indicated it may also have been waystation for further southern exploration, leaving the door tantalizingly ajar for the possibility of further Viking discoveries in North America.

The saga did, however, eventually come to an end for the stalwart explorers of Greenland and Iceland who briefly called this newfound land home. Their settlement was abandoned, and they left very little tangible and verifiable evidence of their presence. Perhaps the logistics of living so far on the fringes of their known world became too difficult for them, or maybe they succumbed to the same changing environmental factors that eventually drove their kinsman out of Greenland. It may have been hostile relations with the indigenous population that was the final deciding factor in their abandonment of Vinland. Likely, it was a combination of many things that made frontier living no longer viable.

Regardless of what made the Vikings take to their longships and return home, the fact (now undisputed) remains, that they did find their Vinland, and it did exist. They explored, fought, survived, and possibly thrived on the shores of a land that European history would later, perhaps foolishly, dub “The New World”. What the Ingstads found at L’Anse aux Meadows (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site) merely confirms a now well-established truth about the Vikings: They were much more than pirates and warriors; they were also pioneers and explorers that dared venture beyond the grey waves of mysterious waters, in search of new lands and fates of their own making. With an indomitable will that time briefly forgot, they forged a path of dreams and triumph, of horror and tragedy, and ultimately, wrote the first page in the European chapter of the history of North America.