June 28, 2000. Copyright 2000. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

CANADA WELCOMES MODERN VIKINGS

By Elisabeth Ribbans

LONDON, June 28 Graphic News: THE VIKINGS are coming. Nine impeccably peaceful Vikings will clamber out of an historic wooden sailing ship onto the northern tip of Newfoundland today after a voyage of almost 2,000 miles from Iceland. As they step ashore at LÕAnse aux Meadows, their minds will probably be focussed less on pillage, instead yearning for their first hot bath after more than a month at sea.

The Vikings were good at many things Ð and not all of them bad. A thousand years after the age of the blond marauders, their descendants hope to remind the world that they were also expert craftsman, cosmopolitan traders and, above all, intrepid navigators.

On June 17, the Icelander Ð an exact replica of a Viking ship Ð set sail from Reykjavik to recreate the legendary voyage in 1000AD of Leif Eriksson, the first known European to set foot in North America. The 4,200km (2,600-mile) odyssey is part of a year of celebrations to mark a millennium of contact between Iceland and the U.S. and Canada.

Long before Christopher Columbus ÒdiscoveredÓ the New World and its inhabitants, Leif Ð son of Erik the Red Ð explored the east coast of Canada. He named his first port of call ÒHellulandÓ (flat stone land), now identified as Baffin Island. Further south, he found ÒMarklandÓ (forest land), reckoned to be modern-day Labrador. Finally, Leif came to a place where grapes grew wild, and called it ÒVinland.Ó He stayed in what is almost certainly northern Newfoundland for at least a winter Ð possibly a few years Ð before returning home. Other Vikings followed in his wake, exploring  further south, perhaps as far as Manhattan.

Leif ErikksonÕs exploits have long been recounted in the Icelandic Sagas, historical accounts of the adventures of the Vikings who left Scandinavia for Iceland in the 9th century. According to the stories, Leif Ð who was born in Iceland, raised in Greenland and tutored in Norway Ð was sent westwards by Norse King Olaf to spread Christianity.

But it was not until the 1960s that proof emerged of contact with the New World. It came when archaeologists excavated a buried settlement containing Viking tools and brooches at LÕAnse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland. The remains were carbon dated to around 1000AD.

It is not known why Leif failed to establish a permanent colony but the sagas mention clashes between the newcomers and the native Americans.   The Icelander, a copy of the Gaukstada Viking ship that was discovered in a burial mound, has been constructed by Captain Gunnar Eggertsson, a shipbuilder who claims descent from Leif Eriksson. The oak and pinewood boat, 22.5 meters (74ft) long and 5.3 metres (17ft) at the beam, is fast and stable even by modern standards. This time around, encounters with the ÒnativesÓ are expected to be friendly. Welcome parties are planned at many of the 40 planned stops, including Greenland, Newfoundland, Halifax, Boston and New York, where on October 5 Hillary Clinton will meet EggertssonÕs crew at the end of their four-month journey.
/ENDS