COME FROM AWAY

“And so they came.  Five centuries before Columbus.  Fearless warriors out to discover a new world.  L’Anse aux Meadows, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the only authenticated Viking settlement in North America”.

To quote the introduction from a Newfoundland and Labrador tourism video that definitely left its mark with its dramatic scenery and a story told through the imagination of children, we had been intrigued by the Viking settlement of L’Anse aux Meadows since our Iceland trip last year. 

Red haired children run through grass roofed, sod walled buildings, the landscape wild, wind blowing the colourful wild flowers this way and that and the sea stretching beyond the rocky shoreline to infinity.  The underlying premise – Vikings!  Although to be fair, they were Norse people. “Viking” translates to “raiding Pirate”.

Located at the tip of Newfoundland’s northern peninsula L’Anse aux Meadows is first known evidence of European presence in the Americas with Norse explorers arriving from Greenland establishing a small timber and sod encampment.

We recalled Leif Eriksson’s statue in Reykjavik as he looked west to what he referred to as “Vinland”, modern day Newfoundland.  The name is interesting because vines and berries do not grow in Newfoundland and it suggests that the adventurers travelled further afield, likely to New Brunswick, where vines would have flourished. 

Stepping ashore we walked past a collection of weather beaten homes, one in particular reminiscent of Quoyle’s derelict house (with apologies to E. Annie Proulx’s “The Shipping News”).  Fishing paraphernalia lay along the beach together with upturned watercraft sorely in need of a lick of paint.  

The gravel path along the shoreline took us through sedge like grass where streams ran down the gentle hillsides to the sea.  We were enjoying a sunny day but what those winter winds must be like in such an exposed landscape.

The local Parks Canada interpreters were welcoming and soon spoke about their own lives.  Since the collapse of the fishery everyday life has been hard but there was no mistaking the heart and soul of these folks as brave as any Viking warrior.

The recreated Viking village and archaeological site is interesting and well presented and it underscored the seafaring skills of the Norse as they made their way west from Scandinavia to Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and Greenland.  

Erikson visited Baffin Island and Labrador’s Torngat Mountains before making “Jellyfish Cove” (a literal translation of L’Anse aux Meadows”) his home for anywhere between ten and a hundred years, no one knows for sure.

Brings a whole new meaning to “Come From Away”.