Vikings of 2000

▪ 2001

 In the year 2000, descendants of the Vikings achieved what their ancestors had failed to do a millennium earlier—conquer the eastern Canadian province of Newfoundland. Instead of using swords, spears, and shields, the latter-day Norsemen used songs, sagas, and a fleet of graceful replica ships to win over the people of this rocky island, where Vikings led by Leif Eriksson briefly settled in about AD1000. Capt. Gunnar Eggertsson, an Icelander and a direct descendant of Leif Eriksson, would never forget emerging from the fog, storms, and towering icebergs of the North Atlantic at the spot his ancestors had so hastily left. “L'Anse aux Meadows was a very special place. There we saw the houses that had been there since the year 1000, and we also saw the houses where people live that were like the houses we build in Iceland today,” he said.

      More than 15,000 people climbed the rocks and gathered in the grassy reaches of L'Anse aux Meadows on July 28. Watched by millions of television viewers, choirs sang Norse songs, and the sleek Viking replica ship Íslendingur and a flotilla of other Norse boats danced over the waves, re-creating the arrival of the first Europeans from Iceland a thousand years earlier.

      L'Anse aux Meadows, located on the northern tip of western Newfoundland, was the only authenticated North American Viking settlement. Sod huts and a wide array of relics were discoveredin 1961 by archaeologists Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, who were led to the site by a local fisherman. The sheltered meadow became a United Nations heritage site featuring reconstructed sod huts and displays of Norse artifacts.

      The Vikings spent three or four years in the land they called Vinland, sailing as far south as the Gulf of Maine, seeking timber and a location for a new colony. According to the Norse sagas, the local aboriginal people, whom the Vikings called skrælings, or wretches, then drove them back to Iceland. A thousand years later some native leaders joined the celebrations.

      Newfoundlanders, most of whom proudly boasted of having saltwater in their veins, clamoured for a chance to sail with the nine-person Íslendingur crew during its tour of the province and to work as actors at the re-creation of a Viking village built near L'Anse aux Meadows. The Newfoundland Museum staged a huge traveling exhibit of Viking and native artifacts to tell the story of the first contact between Europeans and the native people of North America. Plays and concerts also played to packed audiences as actors and singers retold the ancient tale.

Kevin Cox

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