When most people think of the Norse ships from millennium ago they think of the Viking longship. But the backbone of Norse trade was the knarr, a freighter about 54 feet long. Knarr isn’t sleek, it’s broad and looks kind of like a floating wooden bathtub. Back in 1997 Robert Stevens built a knarr, he christened Snorri, in Phippsburg, Maine on commission from adventurer W. Hodding Carter III, son of the Hodding Carter, former State Department Spokesperson. The ship is a replica of one found in Denmark. Carter’s goal was to sail the ship from Eric the Red’s farm at Brattahlíð, Greenland, following his son, Lief Ericson’s, route across the Davis Strait to L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, the only authenticated Norse settlement west of Greenland.
When the ship arrived in September, 1998 after an 87 day voyage, 1200 people came out to welcome it, including busloads of schoolkids. Carter presented the ship to the community, and now it’s the centerpiece of a non-profit organization that runs Norstead Viking Village. The village has recreations of different Norse buildings including the boathouse where Snorri, the knarr is housed, a forge based on one in Denmark, a longhouse based on one in Iceland and a church based on one in Greenland.
There are runestones scattered around the site which is two kilometers from the UNESCO World Heritage Site. (See the last post.)
But here’s the funny thing. When I used the word Viking in Norstead Viking Village the interpreter said “This is not a Viking Village, it is a Norse trading post. Not all Norse were Vikings. Vikings are either pirates or a bad football team.” (Turns out he’s a Green Bay fan.) And in a sense, he is right. The outposts in Greenland and to the west were either farms or trading posts, not places where Viking raiders set forth to plunder Europe.
Norstead was officially closed but it opened for us, and there were more interpreters in costume at Norstead than at the Parks Canada site. They did not have “magic fire” (gas fireplace) but real fires, making the exhibits smoky and seem, somehow, more authentic. They opened the giftshop, which was stocked with last year’s merch. This year’s merch arrived the same morning we did and the gift shop director said that it was like Christmas.
