Kilometres Remaining: 9,211/11,978
Like I said... what a night! I am amazed that our tent was able to keep out that storm. Well... it did not keep all of it out as we had cause to dry out the tent with towels and then use the drying machine to dry them... but... it did pretty well. Despite the maelstrom outside, I slept pretty well.
I may have slept well, but the weather did not improve much. It was a little dryer when we woke, but still poor. We got up anyways and headed to our first destination: L’anse aux Meadows. That name is probably not familiar to most of you but maybe these ones are... Eric the Red? Leif Erikson? Vinland? All of these names have something in common... Vikings! Erik the Red was banished from Norway for manslaughter so he sailed into the distance to discover Greenland (so named to be attractive to convince settlers to move there – his settlement on Greenland lasted 500 years...). Leif Erikson was Erik’s son (thus Erikson... get it?!) and also quite an explorer. No one knows the details but there is a sage written about Leif’s trip beyond Greenland to a place called Vinland (so named for the grapes that grew there). This was only a tale and no one knew if there was any truth to it. There was one other saga that mentioned land further west than Greenland, but it too was only a tale.
Some people believe that these sagas were more than just stories and they spent their life looking for this “Vinland.” Tracing the path that must have been Erikson’s voyage, these explorers asked people in community after community if they had any ruins or strange grassy mounds. It took years, but eventually in the community of L’anse aux Meadows the village elder/chief/spokesperson told these explorers that he had something to show them. It took excavation to prove it, but this was the discovery of a small Norse settlement on the very northern tip of Newfoundland. It turned out that it probably was not Vinland but more likely a place for the Norsemen to spend the winter and repair their ships. If this was not Vinland, Vinland has yet to be found but could me in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, or even further South. If there was a settlement there it would likely be as difficult to find as the settlement at L’anse aux Meadows. If you are wondering why these settlements failed, there are Eskimo legends about Norsemen coming and settling in what was their hunting grounds. There was some trade initially (though not in weapons as the Norsemen were instructed by Leif not to trade their iron to the natives) the story tells of trade failing and the Norsemen killing many of the native women and children. In revenge, the natives killed all of the Norsemen with the exception of one who managed to get into a boat (thus propagating the stories of Vinland). Who knows what the truth is in all this... what we do know is that there are ruins of a settlement in L’anse aux Meadows, and it is amazing.
The excavation has been covered up again but we can see the mounds where the original buildings stood. The artefacts were removed and put in a museum. There are also some huts that have been recreated to demonstrate what the settlement might have looked like. There are also two people who re-enact the experience of life in the settlement.
I have learned something that somewhere I already knew. I like Vikings. This whole experience made me want to watch the Thirteenth Warrior (if you have not seen it you should) and visit Iceland. Vikings are totally awesome.
Side note. This is also a UNESCO world heritage site and everyone should see it. Sure... it is in the middle of nowhere, but it is incredible.
Moving on. Have you ever heard the name Raleigh? I like the name. Do not ask me why, but it is like the name Uriah. I like that one too. Anyways, up on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland there is a village called Raleigh. It was not far from L’anse aux Meadows so based on my like of the name we went there. We went. We looked. We realized that there was nothing there, and we moved on. We were trying to find breakfast somewhere... but... since tourism season is over, most everything was/is closed. Raleigh was a bit bigger than L’anse aux Meadows, but still small, and everything was still closed.
Yep. Totally satisfied that desire to visit the name.
Getting hungry we drove to St. Anthony. It is the largest town/city in the area so we thought there would be food there. We drove to one end of town, found a lighthouse, braved the storm outside for long enough to get some photos and then returned to the car. We drove back through town to find some food. There were not a lot of options as many places were shut down for the season. We found a fried chicken place and enjoyed some of Newfoundland’s finest. We were going to head back to camp but while we were there we thought that we should see what there was to see.
Grenfell. Sir Wilfred Grenfell. I had never heard of him, but evidently his impact was huge. He came to Labrador and Newfoundland at a time when the people living there lived under deplorable conditions of poverty without any health care at all. As part of a mission he sailed from England to Labrador and treated the people there. Over the next years he changed the face of Labrador and Newfoundland by bringing in doctors, creating a health system, helping boost the economy, and helping the people. Here he is still a hero. We saw first saw the Grenfell Museum, and then we saw his house. It was as if he had just moved out. I am glad that we got to learn this piece of history about Labrador and Newfoundland.
We headed back to camp and in the mild rain I built up a huge fire. We cooked some supper and cooked up some ham to eat in the mornings. When the cooking was done we packed up and headed to bed.
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