The Viking settlement in northern Newfoundland

From: <rmacleish@chelaw.com>
Date: September 26, 2017 at 10:45:48 AM GMT-2:30
To: <georgegardner@gmail.com>
Subject: The Viking settlement in northern Newfoundland

After leaving the Genevieve Bay Inn, we drove north to the tip of Newfoundland. It was a clear and sunny day and we stopped briefly at the Saint Anthony airport for a bathroom break.

At the airport, we learned from a security guard that the people we had observed off the road were picking partridge berries. We've had a few of those berries over the past few days and they taste something like blueberries.

I do have to say that it is been hard to find authentic local food. For the most part our choices are fried chicken, fried chicken in a bun or fried chicken with fries. The only exception has been cod tongues which I ate, but which George wrote about. Stated simply, they were disgusting even with a heavy dose of lemon juice and saturations of ketchup. I'm hoping for a little fresh cod or perhaps a tasty moose curry tonight. 

George continues to converse with the locals.  He is very interested in them, as always, and  they seem to take a real shine to him. He was the life of the party at the women's darts night in Genevieve Bay. The contestants readily agreed to video interviews after their match.

We made it up to the Viking settlement in the early afternoon. It was really quite interesting. The Vikings arrived here from Greenland more than 1000 years ago. Archaeologists believe that they were only here for about four seasons. They came to gather wood to bring it back to the farms in Greenland for building materials. Apparently, there was a significant global warming almost 1000 years ago and it got so warm that the Vikings were able to grow barley in Greenland. The other significant Viking settlement was in Iceland. 

It is approximately 2500 kilometers from here to Greenland. The Vikings would not come across the open water but go along the coast of Labrador. They wanted hardwood rather than softwood so they would harvest oak in New Brunswick and bring it up to this settlement. They took a bath every week, as opposed to Europeans, who took a bath once a year. 

The site was discovered in 1960 by two European archaeologists. When they arrived to do their research, they asked the locals for any evidence of disturbed ground. The locals brought the archaeologists out to the site where there were indentations in the ground. The archaeologists determined after a dig this was a human settlement, the first Viking settlement discovered in North America. 

Well so much for Christopher Columbus. He's been getting a bad rap anyway and it seems the Vikings were the first Europeans to discover North America. Of course, it had already been discovered by various indigenous people and their presence was also found at the same site.

At the end of our tour, George and I were permitted to put on Viking helmets and hold swords and shields. There are some truly infantile photographs of us in costumes which are included in the blog. 

We headed out to Saint Anthony's after our visit to the site. We learned this morning that we are sufficiently far north that polar bears visit this town regularly during the winter after arriving on icebergs. There are various exhibits in town about the famous Dr. Greenfell who brought medical care, nursing homes and a hospital to this part of the world at the beginning of the 20th century. It's pouring rain and I hope we don't need the services of the good doctor on our ride south today!

Roderick MacLeish
Of Counsel
Clark, Hunt, Ahern & Embry