Third, there was a significant population of aboriginal people, known as the Mi'kmaq, who forcefully opposed the Norse.Įach of these factors were complicated by other elements. Second, all of Vinland's natural resources were available elsewhere, even close to home in Europe.

First, the relatively small Norse population of Greenland couldn't sustain a significant effort in Vinland, especially considering the distance dividing the two and the fact that arable land remained available in Greenland. In a paper presented to the Sixteenth Viking Congress in 2009, Brigitta Wallace's 'L'anse aux Meadows: Different Disciplines, Divergent Views' suggested three primary reasons why Norse settlements in Canada did not become permanent.

Lawrence and eastern Canada's New Brunswick (which Leif Eriksson named Vinland.) It's curious that permanent colonies weren't established in the New World, especially considering that the areas noted were every bit as fertile as Iceland and the western reaches of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. It's generally accepted now that the Norse settled in Iceland, then colonized Greenland, and thereafter ventured as far as present-day Gulf of St. It was only a few decades ago when school children were taught that Columbus 'discovered' America, with credit spread among other European explorers for other sightings and encounters. The Half-Drowned King, Linnea Hartsuyker's wonderful Norse saga, is set prior to the end of the first millennium, significantly before the major explorations of the Norse to the west, an era when anthropologists have traced their footprints to the edges of the North American continent. This article relates to The Half-Drowned King

The half drowned king review