L’anse aux Meadows is really a just small community right next to the site where the Norwegian Leiv Eiriksson and his men first time set foot round 1000 A.D. It’s a 5-6 hour drive from Red Bay (waiting time for ferry Blanc Sablon - Saint Barbe) and it’s a very pleasant drive (except for the potholes). On a chilly June day, we arrived at the very northern tip of Newfoundland which has an arctic climate. Even though we were coming from a couple of days in Red Bay Labrador this environment seemed kind of tougher and harsher. A thousand years ago though they say the climate was much warmer, so the Norse travelers might have had an another experience. They came to a continent of opportunities and make contact with the locals which must have been a challenge. They came back several times and just maybe they tied to settle, but no permanent settlement lasted.

The visitor center is very informative and visual and it has a good 20 minute informative film telling the story of the Vikings and their visit in Helleland, Markland and Vinland introducing the concept Completion of the circle.  Humans have for thousands of years been migrating from the origin in Africa through Europe and Asia, across the American continent all the way to the Atlantic coast. With the Viking voyage the humans completed the full circle around the globe.

The site itself is not very scenic. There is little to see at first except for the spit of desolate land or dramatic coastland with icebergs passing by. From the visitor centre you follow a wooden path and after a 5-10 minute walk (depending on which direction you chose on the loop) you arrive at the archeological site or reconstructed collection of Viking houses. Like in other archeological sites, you have to use your imagination to visualize how it would have been. The reconstructed houses are what makes you understand what conditions these travelers made for themselves and with the actors around (a blacksmith, a kitchen girl and so on) makes it all “come alive”.  It is actually very nice.

The archeological site is a bit harder to grasp. You can barely see some small heaps full of grass, but with the reconstructed houses very near it is easier.

After seeing the house site we also hiked the Birchy Nuddick Trail, a 2.2 km long interpretive trail that leads you through the habitats that have changed very little through the last ten centuries. This gives you another angle of what the Norse travelers originally met.

Being a Norse makes you kind of proud visiting this place but also humble. How did these ancestors of ours manage this? In the 1960s the Norwegians Anne Stine Ingstad & Helge Ingstad studied the Viking travels and they finally revealed their secret! Both are great achievements although very different.

 

### Randi & Svein