L'Anse aux Meadows

Around 1,000 years ago Norsemen sailed here from Greenland and made a settlement at his location.

It's only speculation why they did so but it is thought that there were plenty of trees here at that time and trees were in very short supply in Greenland then.  Tree's were needed for building and repairing their ships, for building homes and of course for firewood.

There are still trees in the area but they are mostly short and stunted and not much good for anything but burning.

These pics are all from the L'Anse aux Meadows area. You can see there are not many trees.

So this is our group on the way to look at the ancient Norse site and if we look cold it's because we were. This was the coldest day we had. It looks nice and sunny but it was cool and windy. Lucky Silversea has given each of us a parka.

This, and the next three,  are at the original Norse village. The raised mounds are where the foundations of the buildings stood.

And below is a re-created long house as it probably looked 1,000 years ago - minus the red parkas of course!

Locals play the parts of the Norse people. They are quite good actually at explaining how the people lived back then.

The interiors of the long houses are intended to be as close as possible to the way they were

A couple more shots of the longhouses.

The shots above and below show how the walls were constructed - from layers of peat.  

The local blacksmith's shop. Even 1,000 years ago they were mining and smelting iron here.

A few more shots of the surrounding countryside.

A moose and her calf.  Not a great shot - they were quite far away.

That's it.