After a night of rain we begin the day with gray clouds still hanging over us. There is a strong northwesterly wind blowing, and we hope he will drive the rain clouds off. We return back to Rt-430 and turn toward St. Anthony, NL to find the turn onto Rt-436 which will bring us to L'Anse aux Meadows UNESCO Historical Site. What makes this place so special? It indeed closes the loop of the human migration which started in Africa and diverted to the East and West when leaving that continent more than 70,000 to 100,000 years ago. With the Norsemen crossing the Atlantic and setting foot 1000 years ago on the North-American continent the circle of migration completed. Leif Eiriksson and about 60 - 90 people set up a sturdy encampment of turf-walled buildings with quarters and workshops as an over-wintering base at what is called today L'Anse aux Meadows for exploring to the South via the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They called the land Vinland, and there is evidence that over the next two decades they travelled as far South as to the province of New Brunswick. We stroll around the historic site amongst some of the rebuilt dwellings and take the coastal trail around this historic site. There are still some icebergs floating off the coast, and we can add those to our tally. After the wind has chilled us enough we leave the site and make a run to St. Anthony, NL for a late lunch and some grocery shopping. We will be leaving Newfoundland tomorrow and stock up on some essentials for the next days. After that it returning to the Viking Lodge Motel and enjoying the sun set over the bay.
No comments:
Post a Comment