THE TERRIBLE ONE'S HORSE: CHAPTER 32

MY TAKE ON THE VINLAND EXPEDITION OF THORFINN KARLSEFNI

Much ink has been spilled on the possible locations of the various places named in the Norse Vinland sagas.  I’ve decided to spill a bit more.  While no proposed site can be confirmed without archaeological evidence, and multiple candidates are available for selection, I do believe that some probability of likelihood has been established already for the following:

1) We know with absolute certainty that the starting point for Karlsefni’s expedition was the western settlement in Greenland.

2) His first destination was the Bear Islands (or Bear Isle).  A case has been made for Disco Island off the coast of Greenland, but this makes little sense, as that island is significantly to the north of the western settlement.  An alternate case has been made for any grouping of islands on the southern tip of Baffin Island, which would be the logical destination of someone heading directly west to the North American continent.  There are several island groups here on the east side of the Hall Peninsula, any of which could have been the Bear Islands.  The Bear Island now found at the tip of the Hall Peninsula was not named such until 1946.  Before then it was known in the Inuktitut language as Siqinirmiut for the Inuit group of that name (“People of the Sun”). Based on the data presented in this authoritative Website –

http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1315677967159/1315678088470

- I would cite the Leybourne Islands, used traditionally as a winter hunting ground for polar bears by the native peoples.  As viewable on maps

(http://www.geographic.org/geographic_names/name.php?uni=-802306&fid=906&c=canada), the Leybournes are EXACTLY opposite the Greenland settlement to the west.  While weather conditions have changed since the time of the Vinland voyages, and hunting practices may also have been altered, this is the best we can do for suggesting Bear Islands as the first stop on Karlsefni’s journey.

Bjarni leaves Iceland, sees one land, then a second, then a third, one with a glacier that he determines is an island.  Then he reaches Greenland. This account reads as a pretty obvious “reversal” of the other voyages, with the first land being Vinland, i.e. Newfoundland, the second Markland or Labrador and the third Helluland or Baffin Island.  Greenland naturally comes next. The question then becomes: could the bear island or bear islands merely be another name for Helluland itself?

Finally, I would mention that the Native Americans called Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence ‘Notiskuan’, meaning “the place where bear are hunted”.

We are told that from Bjarn Island to Helluland before a northerly wind takes 2 days, and from Helluland to Markland it takes the same amount of time, also before a northerly wind. So rather than a island or island on the tip of the Hall Peninsula, we perhaps should look to such a place on the end of the Cumberland Peninsula farther to the northeast. According to Christy Ann Davis’s 1999 thesis “A Case Study of Polar Bear Co-Management in the Eastern Canadian Arctic”, the ‘highest density of polar bears [on the end of the Cumberland Peninsula] occurs between Angijak Island and Cape Dyer.’  Angijak Island is itself the largest island in the region.  The fact is that anyone crossing the Davis Strait from Greenland to Baffin Island would first sight the great snow-clad mountains of the southern Cumberland Peninsula (as the explorer Charles Frances Hall did in 1860, when crossing from Holsteinborg in Greenland).  Angijak and surrounding islands happen to lie directly between these mountains and the Greenland western settlement. It stand to reason, therefore, that if the mountains were used as navigational landmarks, the islands would have been reached eventually. But, again, we would be basing the identification of Bear Island with the presence of bears, rather than with a man named “Bear”.

Just south of Cape Dyer on the Cumberland Peninsula, in Exeter Bay, is a large island called Bear Island.  I’m working with the toponymist Pauline Arnatsiaq to determine the original native name of this place.

3) Helluland or “Stone-Slab-Land” is, in general agreement, a designation for Baffin Island (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/gea.21497/pdf). We have an even firmer fix on the place where the Vikings landed: at the mouth of Frobisher Bay.  To quote from Pall Bergthorsson’s “The Wineland Millenium: Saga and Evidence” (Malog Menning, Reykjavik, 2000) on the ‘black ore’ the explorer found in this place:

“They are often found in the form of blocks or slabs, with vertical strriations.  The largest of the slabs weighs at least nine tons, and measures 1-3 meters each way, so it is not unreasonable to say [as the saga does] that two men might ‘lie foot-to-foot across them.’ [The slabs] undeniably… fit the description of the large slabs from which Helluland drew its name.”

From here on things get more difficult, and with the exception of Markland for Labrador, there is much continued debate. I consider all that follows mere guesswork and would not venture to defend it against rival theorists. 

4) Bjarn or ‘Bear’ Island. It is worth pointing out that this place is said to lie off Markland or Labrador (according to one MS., to the south and then to the southeast of Helluland). It cannot, therefore, be the Bear Islands already discussed, which clearly lie somewhere between Helluland/Baffin Island and Greenland.  Yet it still has to be pretty far north, as Keelsness or Cape Porcupine (see below) is somewhat south of it. There are a great many islands here off the coast of Labrador and so it is quite impossible to know which is the right one. The saga assures us only that 2 more days south of this Bear Island lay Cape Porcupine/Keelsness.  If the island is approximately equidistant from the northernmost tip of Labrador and Cape Porcupine, it may be one of those very large islands found offshore from Nain or the North River.

And, indeed, this the area where polar bears concentrated, and even denned.  According to Joe Brazil and Jim Goudie (A 5 Year Management Plan 2006-2011 for the Polar Bear/Nanuk in Newfoundland and Labrador, 2006), “Inuit have reported polar bear denning sites on the Nanuktut Islands, Soapstone Island [just NW of Nanuktut/White Bear Islands]… and North Aulatsivik Island [just NW of Nain].”  Bryan C. Hood (in Archaeological Surveys Between Nain and Hebron Regions, Northern Labrador, 1997), we are told “A polar bear denning area is found on the north tip of Soapstone Island and polar bears are frequently encountered between Cape Mugford [on Cod Island] and Nanuktut Island.”  Older sources mention Nanuktut or White Bear Island as being a major landmark off the coast of Labrador.  For example, in The Newfoundland and Labrador Pilot (Great Britain Hydrographic Department, 2nd Edition, 1887), the author states that “Nanuktut, improperly called Mugford by some of the Newfoundland fisherman, IS THE MOST REMARKABLE AND UNMISTAKABLE LAND ON THE LABRADOR COAST [emphasis mine]; its eastern side bears from the eastern side of Saddle Island… and is surrounded by a number of inaccessible peaks, the three highest of which are situated at the northeast, northwest, and southeast extremes respecgtively, and are probably not less than 1,500 feet high…”

If it’s bears we want, and the most notable landmark on this part of the Labrador coast, then a reasonable guess for Bjarn Island would be Nanuktut.

5) Kjalarness or “Keel’s Ness” is provided with a typical aetiological story in the saga.  In reality, we are looking for a remarkable feature in a headland that resembles a ship’s keel.  A good case has already been made for Cape Porcupine, and I think there is good reason for accepting this.  The probable location of Thorvald’s Krossanes (discussed below) will add support to the identification.

6) Straumfjord or ‘Current Fjord’ has been linked properly to Belle Isle.  A meeting of currents here can make navigation in Belle Strait Strait extremely hazardous due to strong tidal forces.  Belle Isle is, of course, Current Island.  The description of the Straumfjord settlement matches the location given elsewhere (again, see below) for Leifsbudir.  We are either dealing with two names for the same place or conflicting traditions about the founding of the site that became entwined in the saga narrative. 

7) Karlsefni’s settlement at Hope, reached only after sailing south along the coast from Straumfjord for “a long time”, is the southernmost settlement established by the Norseman.  By “coast” the account can only mean the coast of Newfoundland, as this is where the Straumfhord/Leifsbudir settlement was located.  We are at a loss to know whether he sailed down the east or west side of the Great Northern Peninsula. 

Hope means ‘Tidal Lake’.  It is described thusly in the saga:

“…eventually they came to a river that flowed down into a lake and from the lake into the sea.  There were extensive sandbars outside of the river mouth, and ships could only enter it at high tide.”

We are not told Thorvald goes south and then well east; this takes out a prime candidate for Hope, namely the Gander Bay, with its river and lake. Donald Wiedman (see his Website at http://lavalhallalujah.wordpress.com/) makes a good case instead for Saltwater Pond, which lies inside a huge sandbar, separating this tidal lake from Saltwater Cove.  I’m in agreement with him that this makes for an excellent Hope, if we opt for the east side of the Great Northern Peninsula as the location for this Viking settlement.

Superficially at least, a good candidate on the west coast of the peninsula would appear to be Humber Bay, its river and Deer Lake.  These could be reached by going straight south down the coast along the peninsula.

The Humber River area is now, and has been in the past, the richest fishing system in all of Newfoundland.  The saga account emphasizes the richness of the fishing at Hope. 

But was the river navigable by Viking ships to Deer Lake?  And were there, as the saga account insists, extensive sandbars at the mouth of the river which made entry possible only during high tide?

The answer to the first question is “yes”:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mCpJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=lower+and+upper+humber+newfoundland&source=bl&ots=mrk4QAybqP&sig=eWW7DjUNJ83biELu_ZW7IvvDzk8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ef2xUsL6As7eoATbqoLoBg&ved=0CGYQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=lower%20and%20upper%20humber%20newfoundland&f=false

The second question may also be answered in the affirmative.  “The Bar” is a well-known feature at the mouth of the Humber:

“The bar, a shallow flat, extends three-quarters of a mile from the head of the Humber river and falls suddenly to deep water.  Two rocks awash at low water are situated close to the west extreme of this flat… Great caution should be used in approaching the head, as the lead gives but little indication of the immediate approach to the bar.”

[From http://books.google.com/books?id=bmkDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=newfoundland+river+can+only+be+entered+at+high+tide&source=bl&ots=idn5JvQ0aA&sig=jL5Zq8C6GvHAltmVtt_QddZspLM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WBayUtTlMJLroASCtYKICA&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=humber&f=false]

Could Thorfinn Karlsefni’s Hope settlement have lain on Deer Lake?

Unfortunately, no. Dr. Martin Batterson, Director of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland and Labrador (to whom I was kindly referred by Dr. Amir Ali Khan, Manager of the Hydrologic Modelling Section of the Water Resources Management Division for Newfoundland and Labrador), has informed me that “Deer Lake wouldn’t have been tidal when the Vikings were here.”

Dr. Batterson’s idea for Hope, based on his own extensive historical knowledge of the waterways on the west side of Newfoundland, is the St. George’s River estuary.  He noted in particular the major sandbars at this location, and that the estuary would have been a “tidal lake” in the Viking period. 

In fact, Dr. Batterson realized that the saga description for the Hope base or settlement exactly matched the definition of a so-called barachois.  Here are a couple of good definitions of this water feature:

barachois n also barrachois, barrisois. DC ~ (N B: 1760-); HARRAP ~ ‘sand-bar.’ For occurrence in place-names, see SEARY 48, 173-4; even in places officially named Barachois, the local pronunciation may be BARASWAY. A shallow river estuary, lagoon or harbour, of fresh or salt water, sheltered from the sea by a sand-bar or low strip of land; POND 2; cp COSH.

from http://www.heritage.nf.ca/dictionary/azindex/pages/178.html

And here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=UAvyE0pN5akC&pg=PA291&lpg=PA291&dq=barachois+Place+Names+of+Atlantic+Canada++By+William+Baillie+Hamilton&source=bl&ots=T_SmTMHj3Y&sig=HDu_BmJdRlEHSyoC_kMaazYfK90&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0w_bUpabJIH0oASj6YCABQ&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=barachois%20Place%20Names%20of%20Atlantic%20Canada%20%20By%20William%20Baillie%20Hamilton&f=false

A good description of the “barachois” of the St. George River comes from http://deja-vu.ca/sville_xing.htm:

“Stephenville Crossing is situated on a barachois at the bottom of Bay St. George on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland. Over time, a barachois composed of river sediments was formed by the interaction of the discharge of three major rivers and the currents in the bay. The combined discharge of these three major rivers finds it’s way into Bay St. George through an opening in the barachois. This opening, located near the south side of the bay, is known as the “Gut.”

During the rising tide, salt water from Bay St. George flows through the Gut and inside the barachois. The small body of water inside the barachois is approximately seven miles long by one mile wide and is referred to as “the bottom of the bay”. The “Gut” is about 500 feet wide and when the tide goes out, the flow through the opening includes the discharge of Harry’s River, Bottom Brook, Southwest Brook, as well as several other smaller streams that flow into the “bottom of the bay”. On the rising tide, the salt waters of the bay flow into the bottom of the bay. The level of salinity of the water inside the “Gut” is lower than that of the bay.”

Like the Viking’s Hope, St. George’s River was a major salmon fishing area:

“The Atlantic Salmon have been coming to the rivers on the west coast of Newfoundland for eons. The attraction was likely the fast moving clean water over sand and gravel bottoms. A perfect environment for salmon eggs to grow and hatch into a new generation of salmon. In the springtime, large numbers of salmon navigate the coastline of the bay to find the river where they were born. Other fish, like cod, herring, halibut and eels were also plentiful.

There is little doubt that the abundance fish was the main reason to visit the “Gut”. All of the salmon that migrated into the rivers at the bottom of the bay had to past through the 500 foot wide waterway called the “Gut”. In other words, the “Gut” was an excellent place to catch salmon. The area in the immediate vicinity of the “Gut” was very sandy with minimal vegetation. Basic forms of vegetation had started and in some cases stunted trees were surviving. The tidal flats inside the “Gut” provided a summer home for large numbers of migratory birds. For the first settlers arriving in Bay St. George, the “Gut” may very well have been the most attractive location to set up residence.”

Thus we have two excellent candidates for Hope: Saltwater Pond on the east side of the peninsula, and St. George’s River on the west side.  We do not possess sufficient data at this point in time to decide in favor of one over the other.

However, there is no reason to believe that Vinland was anything other than Newfoundland.  This is not to say that the Vikings were unaware of the huge landmass to the west of Newfoundland – only that their only recorded settlements were restricted to the latter.  Newfoundland IS Vinland. 

ADDENDUM I: LEIFSBUDIR OR LEIF’S BOOTHS

I accept the usual placement of Leif’s Booths at L’anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland.  The island mentioned in the account of this settlement, which lies to the north of a headland, is simply a duplication of Straum Island, with Straumfjord or the Belle Isle Strait lying between itself and the great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland.  A close comparison of the two accounts show this is be so, and I see no reason for trying to make the Straumfjord settlement and Leifsbudir out to be two different settlements. 

ADDENDUM II: THORVALD’S KROSSANESS

According to the Saga of the Greenlanders, Thorvald Eiriksson had sailed along the coast from Keelsness and had “soon” arrived at the mouth of two fjords.  He then sailed to the promontory jutting out between the two fjords.  This promontory was named Krossaness or the Ness of the Cross because Thorvald had himself buried there and crosses erected at his head and feet as memorials.

Where is this Krossaness?  I’m guessing we are dealing with a story meant to explain the fact that either the headland in question was itself cross-shaped or there were some natural or man-made rock formations on the headland that resembled crosses.  If so, it might be possible to find this particular headland.

I have wondered whether the two crosses set up for Thorvald actually represent a folk memory of Inuit inuksuit, stone markers that are sometimes found in the shape of a cross (although whether these cross-shaped markers predate Christianity in the region is still being debated).  Some good information on inuksuit can be found here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=BCNUJIGj0F8C&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=two+cross-shaped+inuksuit+on+the+cape&source=bl&ots=jOhKTnEtoT&sig=ePwYqjwRA8-edgnGkNvYkiVxJ2I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6IGwUqzNNMjxoATmhYKQBg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=two%20cross-shaped%20inuksuit%20on%20the%20cape&f=false

The problem with inuksuit as Thorvald’s crosses concerns their distribution.  They are an Arctic phenomenon, in the main, although they are found along the eastern seaboard of Labrador:

http://www.nunatsiavut.com/images/stories/inukshuk%20project%20final%20report.pdf

The most southerly instance of such markers on the Labrador coast I’ve been able to find is known from an early place-name.  Innuckchuckluck (inuksuk-aluk, aluk meaning ‘large’) or Big Inuksuk is located just south of Hamilton Inlet.  This is potentially significant, as Cape Porcupine just a little further south is probably Keelsness (see below).  Hamilton Inlet answers perfectly to the mouth of two fjords associated with Krossanes in the saga.  The headland jutting out between the two fjords is that which separates Double Mer from Lake Melville.

In my opinion, Thorvald’s crosses are a folk memory of Big Inuksuk, this being a recognizable landmark the Norsemen could have used to assist them in navigation along the coast. 

For a map of Innuckchuckluck in relation to the location of Hamilton Inlet, and a discussion of the Inuit name for Hamilton Inlet, see:

http://www.mun.ca/labmetis/pdf/toponymy%20final%20report.pdf

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/lab5/labvol5_2489b.html

On Keelsness (and, incidentally, the Wonder Strands), William Baillie Hamilton’s “Place Names of Atlantic Canada” has this entry:

Cape Porcupine (Labrador)

Northwest of Huntington Island. Historian explorer Helge Ingstad has written of this area: ‘We continued our voyage northward along the coast; to the west there was a wide, white beach, bordered on the other side by the forest. After some hours we approached a promontory [which] seemed to just out like a spear into the ocean.  It has a curious shape; in the middle it could have been as much as three hundred feet in height… the terrain sloped down evenly on both sides.’ This was Cape Porcupine, earlier named for its resemblance to the animal. But, more important, Ingstad became convinced that this 60-kilometre-long beach, not duplicated elsewhere on the North Atlantic seaboard, was the Furdustrandir, or ‘Wonder Strands’, of the Norse sagas, and that Cape Porcupine was their Kjaldnes or Keelness. To the Norse, its shape undoubtedly resembled an upturned boat.  Samuel Eliot Morrison reached the same conclusion following an exhaustive sea, land, and air reconnaissance of the North Atlantic coast.

NOTE ON DR. SARAH H. PARCAK’S POSSIBLE DISCOVERY OF A VIKING SETTLEMENT ON POINT ROSEE, NEWFOUNDLAND (update to article on March 2016)

The recent identification of possible Viking structural outlines at Point Rosee, Newfoundland, discovered by Dr. Sarah H. Parcak of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, utilizing sophisticated satellite imagery, has cast some doubt on my proposed placement of Hope at St. George’s River. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/science/vikings-archaeology-north-america-newfoundland.html

However, the situation of the Point Rosee settlement is such that it in no way conforms to the saga description of Hope. 

And, alas, excavation has not proven a Norse presence at this location.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Rosee#:~:text=It%20was%20excavated%20in%202015,prior%20to%20the%20historic%20period%22:

"It was excavated in 2015 and 2016 by a team of researchers directed by Sarah Parcak. In a report published on November 8, 2017, the researchers concluded that there was "no evidence whatsoever for either a Norse presence or human activity at Point Rosee prior to the historic period"."

THE PROBLEM OF THE BUTTERNUTS

One of the interesting finds at L’Anse aux Meadows are butternuts and butternut wood. As noted by historical botanists (see http://naturalhistory.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/vinland/archeo.html):

“Butternuts and worked pieces of butternut wood-a tree that was not native to Newfoundland but was present one thousand years ago in northern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick - were also found. This discovery indicates that the people who lived at L'Anse aux Meadows had traveled further south into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and had brought back nuts and wood native to those southern areas and were sampling the region's resources as described in the sagas. These finds suggest that the L'Anse aux Meadows site was a base-camp or gateway to the rich lands around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which is likely the Vinland of the sagas.”

There is thus no denying that the butternuts and wood do appear to have come from the mainland. However, this does not mean there were Norse camps or settlements there. My problem with the idea of more permanent establishments on the mainland is two-fold: 1) the saga accounts do not appear to mention these - if I'm reading them correctly - and 2) with the problems the Norse had on Newfoundland with the indigenous peoples, it is rather inconceivable that they would have been able to survive long where the concentration of those peoples was much higher. None of this means, of course, that the Norse didn't go to the mainland. They most certainly knew it was there and accessed it at least for a limited amount of resources.

Another possibility is that the butternuts and wood were trade goods obtained through the natives.  A curious sort of one-sided trade is mentioned in the sagas.  But it is not impossible that a more significant form of trade may have existed for a time, and that one of the items the Norse traded for were the aforementioned wood and nuts. 

THE NAME VINLAND AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR NEWFOUNDLAND VERSUS THE CONTINENTAL MAINLAND

Attempts have been made to interpret Vinland as a geographical designation embracing not only Newfoundland – where the only known Viking settlements/camps are found – but the Continental mainland as well.  I think this is flawed reasoning.

Two etymologies have been proposed for the place-name Vinland:

vín-land, “wine-land”

or

vin-land, “meadow-land”

By utilizing the name Wine-land, many have sought wild grapes or a certain kind of berry at a latitude that does not match that of L’Anse aux Meadows and much if not all of Newfoundland.  Thus the name is said to represent the mainland and not Newfoundland.  This does not address the problem of what, then, Newfoundland was called by the Norse.  Recourse has been made to seeing Current Island not as Belle Island, but as Newfoundland itself.  But given the size of Newfoundland (surface area 156,453 mi²) and the size of Iceland (39,769 mi²), this is quite impossible.  Newfoundland would have been a land in Norse naming practice, not an island. 

Nor do we have any evidence that the Norse tended to include a “land” as large as Newfoundland, being separate from the mainland, as merely a part of a larger region known collectively as Vinland. Had the mainland been called Vinland, and not Newfoundland, Newfoundland itself would have had its own distinct name.

Thus we can be fairly certain that Newfoundland is Vinland.  What the mainland may have been called by the Norse must remain unknown.  Possibly it was viewed as an extension of Markland.