Iceberg Alley Boat and Viking Settlement Day 7

Wednesday, August 21, 2019
L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
We spent the morning doing the optional Iceberg Alley Boat Tour which was fabulous! 
We took one of the Northland Discovery Boat Tours on Gaffer III, based out of St. Anthony, Nfld. We saw three humpback whales fully breech. One whale was the mother with her baby playing along the cliff’s edge where all the food was. The whale waved at us with her fin.
We had lunch at Mary Brown’s. Then we drove to Fishing Point at the Fishing Point Emporium. I bought some Labradorite jewelry there. There were spectacular views from this point.
We headed over to L’Ansee aux Meadows National Historic Site, Viking Settlement. It’s the only known remains of the 11th century Viking settlement in North America.it was the very first cultural center in the world to be recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are Norse artifacts dating back to 1000 AD. The site was discovered in 1965.
We were told that this area was the completion of human migration around the world. It is said that human migration originated out of Africa 100-150000 years ago. The Vikings were the first Europeans here led by Leif, son of Eric the Red and the set up a base camp. They met with the indigenous people who lived here. The people had never seen metal before. Must have been scared seeing the first Vikings. The Vikings were Norse people who were raiders. Regular Norse people were not raiders. The Vikings smelted iron here and also did weaving.
We saw Tuckamore trees, bakeapple berries, partridge berries.
They said there were people in Labrador 9000 years ago and had crossed the Bering Straight 24,000 years ago. The Basque people from Europe were here 100 years before Columbus.
We returned to the hotel and had dinner at Jungle Jim’s in Hotel North.
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