Vinland, Vineland, or Winland was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Eriksson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the Vinland Sagas, and describes Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence as far as northeastern New Brunswick. Much of the geographical content of the sagas corresponds to present-day knowledge of transatlantic travel and North America.
Leif Erikson, also known as Leif the Lucky, was a Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus. According to the sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, which is usually interpreted as being coastal North America. There is ongoing speculation that the settlement made by Leif and his crew corresponds to the remains of a Norse settlement found in Newfoundland, Canada, called L'Anse aux Meadows, which was occupied approximately 1,000 years ago.
Helge Marcus Ingstad was a Norwegian explorer. In 1960, after mapping some Norse settlements, Ingstad and his wife archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad found remnants of a Viking settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows in the province of Newfoundland in Canada. They were thus the first to prove conclusively that the Icelandic/Greenlandic Norsemen such as Leif Erickson had found a way across the Atlantic Ocean to North America, roughly 500 years before Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. He also thought that the mysterious disappearance of the Greenland Norse Settlements in the 14th and 15th centuries could be explained by their emigration to North America.
The Norse exploration of North America began in the late 10th century, when Norsemen explored areas of the North Atlantic colonizing Greenland and creating a short term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland. This is known now as L'Anse aux Meadows where the remains of buildings were found in 1960 dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. This discovery helped reignite archaeological exploration for the Norse in the North Atlantic. This single settlement, located on the island of Newfoundland and not on the North American mainland, was abruptly abandoned.
Events from the 11th century in Canada.
Anne Stine Ingstad was a Norwegian archaeologist who, along with her husband explorer Helge Ingstad, discovered the remains of a Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1960.
St. Anthony is a town on the northern reaches of the Great Northern Peninsula of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. St. Anthony serves as a main service centre for northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador. St. Anthony had a population of 2,180 in 2021, compared with 2,258 in 2016, 2,418 in 2011, 2,476 in 2006 and 2,730 in 2001.
L'Anse Amour, romanticized version of Anse aux Morts, is a hamlet located on the north shore of the Strait of Belle Isle, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
The Vinland Sagas are two Icelandic texts written independently of each other in the early 13th century—The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red. The sagas were written down between 1220 and 1280 and describe events occurring around 970–1030.
Quirpon is a local service district in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is on the northern tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland. It is the most northerly sheltered harbour on the island. This area was historically called "Ikkereitsock" by the Inuit.
Cape Bauld is a headland located at the northernmost point of Quirpon Island, an island just northeast of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Route 430 is a 413-kilometre-long (257 mi) paved highway that traverses the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The route begins at the intersection of Route 1 in Deer Lake and ends in St. Anthony. Officially known as the Great Northern Peninsula Highway, it has been designated as the Viking Trail since it is the main auto route to L'Anse aux Meadows, the only proven Viking era settlement in North America. It is the primary travel route in the Great Northern Peninsula and the only improved highway between Deer Lake and St. Anthony. It is the main access route to the Labrador Ferry terminal in St. Barbe.
St. Lunaire-Griquet is a town in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The town is located near the northern tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. The town had a population of 603 in the Canada 2021 Census.
L'Anse aux Meadows is an archaeological site, first excavated in the 1960s, of a Norse settlement dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. The site is located on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador near St. Anthony.
Great Brehat is a local service district and designated place in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is on the Great Northern Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland, 10 km north of St. Anthony. As fishing has declined, the village has become a tourist attraction.
Médée Bay is a natural bay off the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It faces the modern village and archeological site of L'Anse aux Meadows.
Point Rosee, previously known as Stormy Point, is a headland near Codroy at the southwest end of the island of Newfoundland, on the Atlantic coast of Canada.
Route 436, also known as L'Anse aux Meadows Road, is a 29.1-kilometre-long (18.1 mi) north-south highway on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Its southern terminus is an intersection on Route 430, and its northern terminus is at L'Anse aux Meadows, a world-famous archaeological site.
Birgitta Linderoth Wallace is a Swedish–Canadian archaeologist specialising in Norse archaeology in North America. She spent most of her career as an archaeologist with Parks Canada and is best known for her work on L'Anse aux Meadows, currently the only widely accepted Norse site in North America.
