There is virtually undeniable evidence that the Vikings beat the French, Spanish, English, Dutch and Portuguese to Canada and North America — and by some margin.
For centuries, scholars debated whether the mystical place the Vikings referred to as Vinland was actually North America. There was little evidence for it other than circumstantial, and they may have simply been legends.
However, nowadays, it seems to be true.
Here is an overview of the tales of Vikings in North America.
L’anse aux Meadows
Unearthed in the 1960s, L’anse aux Meadows is today a UNESCO World Heritage site found at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. It’s thought to be the remains of an 11th-century Viking settlement — by far the earliest Europeans we know of to reach North America.
The remains are of eight wood-framed peat-turf-covered buildings constructed on a narrow terrace overlooking a peat bog and a small brook. They bear a striking resemblance to Viking settlements we see in Iceland and Greenland. The eight buildings are thought to be made up of three dwellings, four workshops and a forge.
Archaeologists uncovered evidence of iron production and woodwork — the type probably used for repairing ships. There are also indications that the inhabitants of L’Anse aux Meadows voyaged down south, at least for a time, possibly to hunt.
The settlement seems to have been abandoned not too long after its construction.
Discovery of L’Anse aux Meadows
The ruins of L’Anse aux Meadows came about through the skilful deductions of Norwegian scholar Helge Ingstad, along with his wife, Anne Stine Ingstad. They reasoned that the “vin” part of Vinland referred to meadows rather than wine and that the Vinland settlement must have been located somewhere unmistakable for others to find it amidst the vast Canadian wilderness.
These deductions led them to the strait separating Newfoundland from mainland North America. They journeyed to the island’s north and began looking for ruins when a local tip-off led them to L’Anse aux Meadows, meaning Bay with Meadows in French.
Incredibly, they discovered a Viking settlement.
However, whether or not this is “Vinland”, as mentioned by the Vikings, is up for debate.
Vinland Sagas
These findings match up somewhat with the Vinland Sagas. The Vinland Sagas were two Vikings texts written independently of each other, probably in the mid-1200s, describing events sometime between AD 970 and 1030. As such, they are, of course, not a first-hand account. But they’re all we have to go on.
The two accounts making up the Vinland Sagas are the Grænlendinga Saga (Saga of the Greenlanders) and the Eiríks Saga Rauða (Saga of Erik the Red). They are separate texts detailing different Viking voyages to what we now call North America.
According to the Saga of the Greenlanders, North America was first spotted by Bjarni Herjolfsson on a voyage. Subsequently, Leif Eriksson, Thorvald (Leif’s brother), Freydis (his sister) and an Icelandic merchant known as Thorfinn Karlsefni all made their own ways to the continent.
The Saga of Erik the Red explains the Vinland expedition as one event rather than several. It was led by Thorfinn Karlsefni, married to Gudrid, Leif Eriksson’s widowed sister-in-law. Together, they travelled to Vinland and lived there for a few years. Gudrid gave birth to a son, Snorri, apparently the first European born in North America. Although the Erikssons are referred to in this Saga, usually favourably, it focuses much more prominently on Thorfinn and Gudrid.
In both accounts, Leif converts many of the Greenlanders to Christianity.
Vinland is a Norse word probably meaning “Wineland” or “land of wine”. It likely arises from Leif Eriksson’s discovery of grapevines when he arrived on the continent. And the Vikings did love their drink.
There is an important point of note here: wild grapes cannot grow well in the cold. Although Canadian wine is nowadays high-quality and making its name globally, there’s a reason the most famous wine-producing countries are places like France, California and Australia. In North America, the St. Lawrence River is the northernmost boundary of where wild grapes can grow. As such, the settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, far up north, was probably a trading outpost, or initial camp, rather than the Vinland referred to in the Sagas.
Viking oral tradition means that these two accounts can’t be considered entirely historically accurate, and they sometimes contradict each other. However, scholars and historians used them for a long time to suggest that the Vikings reached North America long before the European superpowers of the 1400s and 1500s. The discovery of the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows seemingly confirms those suspicions. However, it’s unlikely to be Vinland itself.
Translations of the Vinland Sagas are available for purchase — the most popular recent English translation was completed by Keneva Kunz and Gisli Sigurđsson and published by Penguin. To find a copy, search for the ISBN — ISBN 0–14–044776–8. Expect to pay less than £10. It’s well worth a read.
Relationship with the Natives
The men called the first Natives they encountered in Iceland and Greenland skrӕlings and continued using the word to refer to the Natives they met in Vinland. The word’s first recorded use comes in Íslendingabók, The Book of the Icelanders, written by Ari Thorgilsson around 1130. Skrӕlings may be related to the Norse word skrá, meaning dried skin in reference to the animal pelts they wore, although there’s no certain etymology yet.
Initially, the Vikings had a decent trading relationship with the Natives they encountered in Vinland (wherever Vinland turns out to be). They traded red cloth in return for animal hides. However, they had a limited supply of red cloth. As a result, they kept tearing the fabric into smaller and smaller strips, with Natives continuingly willing to trade. Eventually, the red cloth was all gone, leading to potentially rising tensions.
Rather than trade for cloth — now all gone — the Vikings offered cow’s milk instead, and the Natives seemed happy to oblige. They left peacefully.
Except…
The other Saga tells of their return a short time later, this time looking for blood. Although the Vikings at the time probably didn’t realise it, scholars today suggest that the Natives, being of Asian (Siberian) descent, may have been lactose intolerant. Even today, between 70% and 100% of members of East Asian communities are incapable of digesting lactose. By contrast, among descendants of populations in areas of the world that have long been dependent on unfermented milk products as a critical food source, such as Northern Europe, only 5% are lactose intolerant.
Therefore, it is likely that this not insignificant conflict between the Norsemen and the Natives erupted due to a misunderstanding of lactose intolerance. The Natives would likely have suffered significant digestive issues and naturally concluded that the Vikings had tried to poison them.
The Vikings managed to defend themselves, having the advantage of advanced metalwork technology, despite being hopelessly outnumbered. It was extremely costly, though, and before long became more effort than it was worth. Eventually, they abandoned the Vinland settlements altogether.
Where was Vinland?
Vinland may refer to a region rather than a specific settlement. Perhaps even the continent of North America as a whole, with the Vikings never fully grasping its enormous size.
Different places and directions are mentioned in the two Sagas, although they were likely corrupted by 200 years of oral tradition.
In the Saga of the Greenlanders, Leif Eriksson builds Leifsbudir, and all the subsequent voyagers return to this same location. In the Saga of Erik the Red, two settlements are mentioned — a more northern one called Straumfjord and one further south referred to as Hóp.
If the Sagas are to be taken as inerrable fact — which they aren’t — one might imagine that the Vikings sailed all up and down the coast of present-day Canada and America. And it’s certainly possible. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.
Vinland has yet to be truly identified. But, hopefully, it might be one day.