A very small village near here is the home of the only known Viking settlement in North America, and we got to visit it today. The name of the settlement is L’Anse aux Meadows, and the dating of a few artifacts found at the site indicate it was occupied in the decades around 1000 CE. It’s a beautiful setting right on the water. What is left are grassy mounds where the buildings used to be. Using information gleaned from the dig as well what is already known about the Vikings during this time, the Canadian government had four of the buildings rebuilt for visitors to see. They looked very authentic and they had park employees dressed in period costumes and were there to answer questions and show us how they worked leather, made iron tools, weave, and cook.
Our visit started with a tour given by one of the park employees. It was a clear, beautiful day but the temperature was in the upper 40s. That combined with the wind really made me think about this wild place and what it must have been like for the people who loved here. Tough wouldn’t even begin to describe them. We walked along a boardwalk through a bog where the mounds were located. Our guide not only shared about the Vikings, but also information about the plants and climate here. One of the interesting plants is the cloudberry, also called a bakeapple. It’s an orange berry that looks a little like a raspberry and tastes a bit like an apricot. The crazy thing about bakeapples is that each plant grows only one berry once a year! You can buy jams and syrup here with bakeapples in them. They are quite a bit more expensive than wild blueberries or partridge berries (like a Swedish lingonberry).
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| Mounds left from the Viking settlement |
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| A cloudberry, aka bakeapple |
Once we got down to where the replica structures were, we could explore on our own. It wasn’t terribly difficult to imagine people living and working here. It was fun to talk with the park workers.
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| House with a sod roof |
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| Working leather |
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| Vikings did a combination of knitting and crochet using one needle made of bone |
After we left this location, we drove down the road to another recreation of Viking village. This one had a boat that was used recently to travel from Greenland and Newfoundland, a longhouse, a church, blacksmith, and a kiln. Like before, there were guides in period costumes explaining what you were looking at. The church was interesting because the Vikings were pagans, but they knew they would have better luck with trade with Christians if they adopted their religion… so they worshipped ‘the white god’ on Sundays and their traditional Norse gods Monday through Saturday.
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| The church and blacksmith |
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| Vikings slept in communal rooms on raised platforms covered in furs |
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| The chieftain’s chair |
When finished here, we had lunch at a place called Skipper Hot’s nearby. It was painted like the jellybean houses we saw in St. John’s. We’ve seen brightly colored houses everywhere we’ve visited.
The Viking adventures had not ended, however! In the evening, we all drove out to the lighthouse where we found another Viking longhouse, this one set up for dinner! We sat at long wooden tables, and although we had silverware and napkins, no forks. Evidently a fork could be a weapon in those days and therefore weren’t allowed at Viking meals? Seems strange we could have knives, but oh well! It was the first time I ever ate a salad with a soup spoon! We did have a good dinner… it was buffet style and there was moose stew, jigged dinner (salt beef and vegetables), roast beef, and baked cod. There were also boiled root vegetables, and for dessert a berry bread pudding with browned butter sauce. It was very good, and it was very filling. The servers then led us through a tribunal of sorts where we could bring complaints against others in our group. It was great fun! Everyone pounded tables and participated in the judgments against one another. If I can figure out how to upload videos to this platform, I’ll show a little of what it was like!
And after a long, Viking-filled day, we went to bed!
