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off course, had sighted land to the west, and old Mr. Ingstad of Oslo, still keen of mind,
Ericson went to see for himself. recalled the moment.

According to the sagas, Ericson's party first "Yes, follow me," he said Mr. Decker told him.
headed northwest across Baffin Bay and came
upon a rocky coast they called Helluland, "Decker took me west of the village to a
present-day Baffin Island. Then they sailed beautiful place with lots of grass and a small
south, hugging the shore, to the wooded place creek and some mounds in the tall grass," Mr.
they named Markland, probably Labrador. Ingstad remembered. "It was very clear that this
Finally, they entered a shallow bay and waited was a very, very old site. There were remains of
for high tide to bring them ashore to a green sod walls. Fishermen assumed it was an old
meadow. Here at L'Anse aux Meadows, they Indian site. But Indians didn't use that kind of
established a base camp, their beachhead in buildings, sod houses."
Vinland.
For the next eight summers, Mr. Ingstad and his
"Some people think this site is Vinland itself," wife, now deceased, and an international team of
said Tamara Ricks, acting supervisor of the archaeologists excavated the site.
National Historic Park here. "But it really was
the gateway to Vinland. Over a period of about Their first reports of discovery were not
10 years, we think, several Viking parties believed. Then they came upon remains of a
probably spent three to five years in total here, blacksmith shop, he said, "one of our most
wintering over, hunting and fishing important finds." In the middle was
and repairing their boats." a huge flat stone for the anvil, with
charcoal and lumps of iron
Vinland proper, scholars conclude, scattered about. A few of the pieces
lay to the south along the coasts had been forged into nails. This
around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in was the earliest evidence of iron
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. processing in North America.
Of Vinland, Adam of Bremen wrote in 1070,
"There grow wild grapes." Climate studies The Ingstads uncovered the outlines of eight
suggest that grapes never grew in Newfoundland, houses, three of which were where the people
but probably did grow in Nova Scotia. lived, perhaps 25 to 35 in each long dwelling.
Built in the style of Icelandic houses, the walls
If there was any doubt that Vikings traveled to were six feet thick, two layers of sod between a
these southern coasts, it was dispelled when layer of gravel for drainage. The roofs were
archaeologists found butternuts, a white walnut, made of turf laid over a timber frame.
buried in the ruins here. The closest place where Radiocarbon analysis dated the artifacts at
butternuts grow is New Brunswick. between 980 and 1020 -- the time of Ericson's
and subsequent expeditions.
And until the discovery of this site, the very fact
of a Viking presence anywhere in North America The Ingstads' work "proved that Norsemen,
was questioned as possibly little more than a Vikings if you will, actually were in America
myth, like trolls and elves. Then along came 500 years before Columbus," Dr. Fitzhugh said.
Helge Ingstad and his wife, Dr. Anne Stine
Ingstad, an archaeologist. In later excavations, Dr. Wallace, of Parks
Canada, uncovered even more artifacts
An Arctic explorer in the Norse tradition, Mr. confirming the site's Viking origins.
Ingstad followed a hunch and an Icelandic map Geochemical analysis of pieces of jasper, used to
from the 1670's, which identified a place on the make sparks for starting fires, revealed trace
north coast of Newfoundland as "Promontorium elements found only in Greenland or Iceland. In
Winlandiae." After scouting out other coasts, he the ground outside one of the houses was a
arrived at the small fishing village here in 1960. bronze pin with a ring head, in a Norse style and
He asked a fisherman, George Decker, if there probably made in Britain. The Vikings used such
were any strange ruins in the vicinity. In an pins as fasteners for their cloaks.
interview in Washington, where he attended the
opening of the Viking exhibition, the 100-year-