in the footsteps of the greenland vikings, Part 4: the great explorers

Eirik Raude’s Greenland farm was called Brattalid. Today, the place is known as Qassiarsuk and is inhabited by some 100 people whose livelihood is sheep-farming.

But it is Eirik’s son Leiv who first attracts our attention when we reach Qassiarsuk harbour after a motor-boat trip across the fjord.Apart from myself and my son, the only people on board were a couple of back-packers and a Norwegian Icelander, with whom the boatman was so preoccupied in conversing that he almost drove straight into one of the many icebergs in the fjord.

Hostel and statue

A few metres from the harbour a bright yellow building catches the attention. The wall bears the legend ‘Leif Eriksson hostel’. Tourists and other travellers can spend the night here.

We catch sight of a statue on a hill behind the hostel. We have a suspicion whom it may depict, but we still go up to see.

Of course. Who else but Leiv Eiriksson, standing legs apart surveying the fjord, as over 1,000 years ago he proudly sailed into this fjord, fresh from his discovery of a new land.

The land he called Vineland – and which we have every reason to believe is New Foundland in Canada.

Vinland = New Foundland

Husband and wife Helge og Anne Stine Ingstad, back in the ‘70s, found traces of the Vikings in the little fishing village of L´anse aux Meadows on the northernmost tip of New Foundland.

Looking at the map, the distance does not seem so great – but Leiv and his men could not know that. They only knew there was a land somewhere to the West.

The Viking chieftain who discovered Greenland and established a settlement there has not been given a statue of his own on the site of his farm.

But there are other traces – memorial stones, and the stones from the buildings at Brattalid.

Brattalid by the shore

Information boards have also be set up, showing where the various buildings of Brattalid were located.

The farm nestled comfortably beneath a small hill, only a stone’s throw from the shore. It must have been convenient for putting to sea. (Just behind the authors acting as Freydis)

Archaeological remains from the Viking era have been found in several sites in Greenland, in Qassiarsuk, in addition to Brattalid, there are traces of Tjodhild’s church

Religious conflict

The statue representing Leiv bears a large cross on his breast. For the sagas state that before Leiv discovered Vinland he had been to Nidaros, where the Norwegian King, Olav Tryggvasson, charged him with the task of Christianising Greenland.

Eirik was not keen. He still worshipped the heathen gods. But Tjodhild, Eirik’s wife and Leiv’s mother, liked what her son told her of the White Christ. She defied her powerful husband and ordered the church to be built.

The church’s foundation wall lies close to the modern church, a good way away from Brattalid. But it was still very visible, no doubt to Eirik’s great annoyance. (To the left reconstruction of Tjodhils church)

Natural Ice-art in the fjord. Earlier called Eiriksfjord, now Tunulliarfik. (Foto: Gunhild Haugnes)

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