L’Anse Aux Meadows disappeared until 1960, when it was discovered by some Norwegian archaeologists.
While driving on the TransCanada Highway, I was stopped by a moose.
It’s in northern Newfoundland, Canada, on the stretch known as the Viking Trail that leads to L’Anse Aux Meadows, the only Norse settlement in North America.
It was there that an important moment in the history of human migration took place.
In 1000, almost half a millennium before Christopher Columbus set off on his famous voyage, a Viking ship, captained by Leif Erikson, brought 90 men and women from Iceland in search of a new home. It was the first European settlement in what we call the New World.
Erikson and his colleagues arrived at low tide and were trapped in the shallow waters of Epaves Bay. As the tide rose, they continued on to L’Anse Aux Meadows.
In modern times, this might appear to be an inhospitable place, subjected to strong winds coming in from the sea. But for someone who has crossed the North Atlantic in an open boat, it’s paradise: forests full of game, rivers with salmon larger than any Norse have ever seen, pastures ideal for livestock. In some parts, wild grapes grow – which comes from the name the Vikings gave to the region, Vinland (land of vines).
The Vikings arrived in America in 1000, almost half a millennium before Columbus.
However, the settlement did not last long. Less than a decade later, the immigrants fled the scene, after repeated confrontations with the natives. Vinland fell by the wayside.
For more than a hundred years, archaeologists from various countries searched for the site of the lost Erikson settlement, but it was not until 1960 that it was finally found: a pair of Norwegian archaeologists, Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, heard from residents of L’Anse Aux Meadows stories about the archaeological site. indigenous.
Initial excavations revealed remains of structures similar to Viking settlements in Iceland and Greenland. And the discovery of nails that are nearly a thousand years old suggests that boats may have been built at the site.
“When we were kids, we played there,” says Clayton Colbourne, a former guide to the area. “We don’t know anything about Vikings being here.”
At the entrance to the archaeological site, a narrow path cuts through a landscape that has changed little since Erikson’s time. The path leads to the remains of the original three huts and five atelier. Government travel agency Parks Canada is reinventing the accommodation and workshop model in nearby locations. In it, guides and animators dressed as Vikings explain how the inhabitants lived.
Actors reenact Viking life at the historic site of L’Anse Aux Meadows
It was in one of these huts that Snorri was born, the first European baby to be born in the New World, and who would become one of the main evangelists in what is now Iceland.
In 1978, L’Anse Aux Meadows was one of the first cultural points of interest in the world to receive the title of Historic Heritage of Humanity by Unesco (the UN agency for education and culture).
