Up with the Vikings!

I had just enough time to holler out “What a day to pick berries!” to the old fellow stooped by the side of the road picking berries. He yelled back, “It’s a good morning , ain’t it!”

The night before at our unexpected “Screeching In” at The Norseman, I learned that besides “Nish” being a tender spot on a “Smirt”, or hurt, that Newfoundlanders like to negate most anything. The day was pouring with rain, freezing cold, and windy as hell. Most of our three days in L’Anse aux Meadows were.

L’Anse aux Meadows was a forgotten outport at the northern tip of Newfoundland until the early 1960’s when a local fisherman told some intrepid Norwegians about the strange mounds located out in the sheep pasture. These turned out to be the remnants of a Norse outpost and it’s the only known Norse settlement in North America. They think the Vikings were here around 1000 A.D. Now, while hardly a large town (there are 23 inhabitants), the area has a few bed and breakfasts and a healthy trade in plastic Viking hats (with horns) made in China.

At the top of Newfoundland