We left Greenland to sail into the North Atlantic. As the ship rocked and rolled, no amount of Dramamine or my trusty anti nausea bracelets (which have worked wonderfully up until now) helped. I walked into the dining room and turned green. Fortunately, Dom helped me back to the room in time for me to throw up everything since last Thursday! I got into bed, closed my eyes and prayed I wouldn’t die! The next morning, all was calm and I was completely fine, so I guess I survived! I’m told this will be the worst we will encounter…fingers crossed. We overheard people saying on a previous cruise the seas were so rough the ship couldn’t anchor in Greenland or in Newfoundland 😱.
After a relaxing day at sea, complete with massages for both of us, we arrive in Newfoundland.
L’ Anse Aux Meadows (“Grassland Bay”), an ancient village founded by that notorious Viking, Leif (Leif the Lucky) Eriksson, is a UNESCO site. Not to take anything away from Columbus, but Lucky Leif got here 500 years before him and it can be proven. He was on his way from Norway to Greenland when he was blown off course and discovered what he named Vinland, now Newfoundland. Leif and company saw berries growing and assumed they could make wine, hence the name Vinland. Soon they discovered those berries belonged to those indigenous people who preceded everyone else. Fortunately, the Vikings found they could trade other items, like milk, with these people and so there was no fighting between them.
In the 1960’s a husband and wife archeologist team came to the area searching for Leif’s colony. They literally hit pay dirt about 7 years into their dig when they came across an iron nail and a bronze ring-headed pin that the Vikings would have used to fasten their cloaks. The dig continued and the foundations of 8 houses were discovered. The area is now grass covered bumps but just down the road these structures were reconstructed so visitors could see the style of life these discoverers had. The Vikings stayed in this area for about 10 years. I think they finally got fed up with the harsh weather and realized its remoteness did not lend itself to any visitors to trade with. I’m sure they exhausted what they and the indigenous people could get from one another.
I especially was interested in the loom and the skeins of yarn in the ‘spinning room’; making an assumption that the colony was made up of both men and women, a total of about 70 to 80 people.
The homes were heated and lit by fires but not of wood as there was no ventilation.
Present day L’Anse Aux Meadow has about 20 full time residents. Two additional people come in the summer to open up the restaurant…whoopee!
Seeing the lifestyles and harsh conditions, as well as the ingenuity of the peoples of the countries we’ve visited certainly makes one think. I didn’t meet any real life Vikings today but we did see docents dressed like them reenacting jewelry making and the like in this little colony.
I’ve thought more of the woman I visited with yesterday in the church. Forty years ago she came on a visit from Iceland to Greenland and, as she put it, “I forgot to go home”. I teasingly asked her if she met a guy and she smiled and said yes. He must have been some guy! Imagine life in Greenland 40 years ago?
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