How Would Norwegian Vikings Feel in Alaska?

Norse sailors reached Newfoundland around the year 1000, nearly five centuries before Columbus. There were never Vikings in Alaska, though. They never got anywhere near it. Still, we can’t help wondering what would have happened if they had. The Norse adapted wherever they went (Icelanders built with turf when timber ran out), so what would a Norwegian crew have made of the Kenai coast, and of the people already living there?

Longship or Angyat (Sugpiaq Skin Boats)

Longships had a shallow draft that let them run up rivers, carried roughly 24 to 50 oars, and set a single square sail. Their hulls were built to flex with the swells rather than fight them, and a fine ship showed off its owner’s wealth and standing. (The ship that actually crossed to L’Anse aux Meadows was more likely the broader knarr. See Boats That Vikings Used Beyond the Longship.)

Meanwhile, in Alaska, Sugpiaq families owned Angyat boats. Designed for carrying larger loads and more people, these skin-covered boats were used for harvesting and open-sea travel. The boat could accommodate 20 paddlers and was between 20 and 30 feet long. The bulbous bow allowed the rowers to use less power to push the boat through the water and is a design that is now accepted as the standard for modern ships. U.S. naval architects adopted a similar shape during World War I.

Longhouses or Ciqlluat (Sugpiaq Sod Houses)

Most Vikings would have come from family farms where the longhouse was the main building. It provided space for multi-generational families and their livestock. The wood support beams for the roof divided the longhouse lengthwise into three sections. There could be one fire pit in the center of the house or a series of smaller fire pits along the central corridor. Longhouses provided little privacy for those living there. They were likely smoky, had no windows, and made for great places to hold a feast. The walls of longhouses of Norway were made of wood planks, wattle and daub with moss stuffed into the areas where wind might otherwise sneak into the home.

Had Norse sailors landed on the Kenai Peninsula, they would have met Dena’ina Athabascans or the Sugpiaq (also called Alutiiq; we use Sugpiaq, “the real people” here). Sugpiaq families lived in the ciqlluaq (plural ciqlluat), a house dug partly into the ground and roofed with sod over a wooden frame, and a Norse sailor would have found it surprisingly familiar.

Climate Comparison: Cold for Vikings in Alaska

Coastal Norway and Southcentral Alaska sit at similar latitudes, but the North Atlantic Current keeps Norway’s coast far milder. Bergen, on the west coast, gets about 90 inches of precipitation a year, with January lows near freezing and July highs in the upper 60s °F.

The Kenai Peninsula experiences about 22 inches of rain and 88 inches of snow each year and temperatures range from an average January low of 7 degrees Fahrenheit to an average July high of 64 degrees. Even Vikings would have been cold in Alaska.

	Bergen, Norway	Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Yearly precipitation	About 90 inches	About 22 inches of rain and 88 inches of snow
Average January low	Near freezing	7 °F
Average July high	Upper 60s °F	64 °F

Norwegian Vikings in Alaska

The cold would have been a shock, but a Norwegian crew would have recognized plenty: fjords, mountains dropping into the sea, and the northern lights overhead, much like the coast of Lofoten. The smart move would have been to learn from the Sugpiaq, who had mastered this coast for thousands of years, and we suspect a Norse boatbuilder would have had plenty to learn.

Keep reading: follow the Norse west in The Vikings’ Discovery of Greenland and Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, who sailed to Vinland.