Tracing my ancestral roots, I travelled to the only authenticated Viking site in North America — in Newfoundland

With a last name of Erickson, it’s not surprising that I’d be warmly welcomed at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. After all, my ancestor Leif (the first European to land in North America) made quite a splash when he arrived more than 1,000 years ago.

“Erickson?” repeated a guide at L’Anse aux Meadows when I told him my name. “You must be related to Leif. If we’d have known you were coming, we’d have had wine ready for you.”

If there’s any place where my last name has cachet, it’s L’Anse aux Meadows. And as I started a search for my Scandinavian roots, I knew I had to travel to this remote spot that’s the only authenticated Viking site in North America. I’d spent a lifetime claiming a connection to the Norse explorer on the (admittedly thin) basis of our similar names and mutual love of travel. This was the perfect place to begin a deep dive into my ancestral gene pool, even if my connections to Leif were more imaginative than genetic.

From my research on Viking history, I knew that the 13th-century Icelandic Sagas contained descriptions of the Norse explorations in North America. For many years these tales were thought to be mainly fictional, until the early 1960s, when researchers used clues in the sagas to find the remains of a Norse settlement in Newfoundland. Today the site is maintained by Parks Canada.

Even in an age of jet travel, it’s not easy to get to L’Anse aux Meadows. After flying into Deer Lake, Newfoundland, my husband and I set out in a car on the aptly named Viking Trail, a 526-kilometre route lined with small fishing villages, dramatic fjords and mountains, and sweeping sea vistas framed by a rocky coastline. After an overnight in the seaside town of St. Anthony, we drove the final miles to our destination.

Appropriately, the entrance to L’Anse aux Meadows is marked by the stylized representation of a Viking ship. From there a sidewalk leads to a visitor centre set on a high spot overlooking the archeological site. Standing on its deck, I savoured the vista below me. Situated in a grassy expanse of meadow next to a shallow bay, L’Anse aux Meadows was lit by early morning sunshine. I could see a walking trail that led first to the area where the archeological digs had been done and then to replicas of several Viking-era buildings.

My guide turned out to be someone who knew the site better than almost anyone: Clayton Colbourne. “I grew up in the village of L’Anse aux Meadows and my friends and I had a front-row seat for the excavations,” he said.

As we walked, Colbourne described the excavation process and the conclusions reached by the archeologists. While L’Anse aux Meadows was occupied by Indigenous peoples before and after the Norse settlement, during the period the Vikings were here it was uninhabited by anyone else, which was probably one of the reasons why this spot was chosen. The settlement was likely constructed by Leif Eriksson (his last name is spelled a variety of ways, but this is the most common) and his men during their first summer in Newfoundland around the year 1000. It later became a base camp for expeditions that explored deeper into the region.

And then, after about 10 years of occupation, the Norse left. “They were starting to have conflicts with the Indigenous people who lived in the larger region, and the trip back to Greenland and Scandinavia was too long to be economically profitable,” said Colbourne. “They took most of their stuff with them, but a few things were left behind, including nails they’d used to repair boats.”

Farther along the path, we came to an area with several sets of turf walls about a foot high. Colbourne pointed out where three large halls once stood, each flanked by smaller huts. The largest was about 23 metres long and 3 metres wide, with the outlines of four rooms marked by raised mounds of grass. “See that one over there?” he pointed. “That’s where archeologists think that Leif Eriksson lived.”

Leif’s house was here, right here? By this point, I’d done so much fanciful spinning of my connection to the explorer that when I was actually confronted with a direct link to him, I could barely contain myself. Bending down, I pressed my hand through the thick grass to reach the soil below. I looked up at Colbourne. “He was here?” I asked.

“Leif was here,” he repeated, smiling.

And now I was here, too — a fact that made me absurdly happy.

I learned more about the daily lives of the Norse in the reconstructed buildings located near the archeological site. Entering the longhouse, I was surprised by how cosy and inviting it was, with its thick walls of sod, flickering fire, and sunlight streaming in through openings in the roof.

“The Norse were always looking for something to turn a profit on,” said a costumed interpreter named Egil when I asked why they’d made the perilous journey from Greenland. “Wood was the most valuable thing they traded, because Greenland had so little of it. But they also dealt in furs, and wine made from grapes that grew farther south.”

Egil’s wife, Anora, filled me in on the lives of the women of the settlement. “Between two and five women were probably here at any one time,” she said. “They tended the sheep and cattle they’d brought with them, cooked meals, and wove cloth for clothing, boat sails and trade.”

Across the road from L’Anse aux Meadows, I visited Norstead Viking Village, a non-profit centre that tells a larger story about the time period. “L’Anse aux Meadows was an unusual settlement, atypical in many ways,” explained Denecka Burden, manager at Norstead. “Here we interpret what ordinary life was like in Iceland and Greenland during the Viking Age between the 8th and 11th centuries.”

Norstead specializes in hands-on Viking history. I helped a group of women prepare a pot of stew over an open fire and then tried my hand at drop spinning, experiences that made me realize I would have been a pretty worthless member of the village. Next, one of the men took me up a ladder to peer into a drydocked knarr, the type of boat that the Norse likely used to sail to Newfoundland.

As I left the site late in the afternoon, I was struck by the differences between seeing history in action as opposed to reading about it in a book. At L’Anse aux Meadows and Norstead, I’d gotten glimpses not only into my own ethnic heritage, but also a much larger story.

And I treasured a comment made by one of the men in the L’Anse aux Meadows longhouse. “Leif?” he’d answered when I asked him his opinion of my famous ancestor. “Oh, he was a fine man. Well-liked. A good businessman. And mild-mannered — for a Viking.”

Excerpted from “The Soul of the Family Tree: Ancestors, Stories, and the Spirits We Inherit” by Lori Erickson (to be published Aug. 24, by Westminster John Knox Press).

Travellers are reminded to check on public health restrictions that could affect their plans.