L’Anse aux Meadows: Explore Norse History in North America

Two Icelandic sagas, the Saga of the Greenlanders and Erik the Red’s Saga, tell of Norse sailors reaching a land so rich that grapes grew wild. They called it Vinland, ‘wine land.’ For centuries most scholars treated Vinland as legend. Then in 1960 Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad found the remains of a Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Excavations through the 1960s proved it: Norse people had reached North America almost 500 years before Columbus crossed the Atlantic.

L’Anse aux Meadows

Archaeologists uncovered the remains of eight buildings of turf over wooden frames, the same style the Norse built in Iceland and Greenland, plus about 800 objects of wood, stone, bronze and bone. In 2021, scientists pinpointed a date: wood at the site was cut with metal tools in the year 1021, the first securely dated European presence in the Americas.

The dwellings could have housed somewhere between 30 and 160 people. The site was probably a base camp for exploring farther south rather than a permanent colony. According to the sagas, the Norse eventually left Vinland because of infighting and clashes with the Indigenous people they called skrælingar.

UNESCO and the Historic Site

Canada named L’Anse aux Meadows a National Historic Site in 1968, and in 1978 it became one of the very first places on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The protected area covers nearly 20,000 acres and includes the remains of three dwellings, four workshops and a forge.

Visitors to the site will find tour guides dressed as Vikings, who provide information about the life of the people who lived there. The tours cover the original artifacts as well as the re-created buildings. Guests may try weaving and blacksmithing and hear stories of Norse sagas and legends.

Nearby, Norstead Viking Village offers more hands-on fun, including the replica Viking ship Snorri, axe throwing and Viking games. The site is generally open from June to early October; check Parks Canada for current hours and fees (visitors 17 and under get in free).

Grapes in Canada?

Newfoundland is far too cold for wild grapes. But archaeologists found butternuts at L’Anse aux Meadows, and butternuts don’t grow north of New Brunswick. So the Norse must have traveled farther south, perhaps into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where wild grapes do grow. Somewhere down that coast may lie traces of a Vinland no one has found yet.

No place in North America can compete with the spot where the Norse actually lived. But not everyone can travel to Newfoundland, and we want Alaskans to feel a little of that history firsthand. With your help, we will. Curious about other Viking places? Read Place Inspirations: Foteviken Museum, Ohio’s Viking Longhall.