The Wineland Voyages

Abstract

THE problem of the Norse discoveries in America is one of the most fascinating in all history. Although in the past some people have, like Nansen, dismissed the reports in the saga of Eric the Red and the Flatey book as myths, there can be few students to-day who doubt that the Norsemen visited Americaon at least two occasions. The present volume is the work of an author who has had experience in unravelling the conflicting accounts left by other expeditions of discovery, and he uses the technique which he had evolved for such rasearch work on the solution of this old and thorny problem. The result is, to my mind, the most successful of all the numerous books so far produced on the subject. He holds that even the most careless report of an expedition must contain some accurate information, and, with this most reasonable assumption, is not prepared to reject any account as valueless. This is sound common sense and completely praiseworthy. Although he admits that the old accounts are too sketchy for absolute certainty in the identification of any particular camp site or anchorage, yet he contends that the general areas visited by Karlsefni‘s early eleventh century expedition can be deduced with some reasonable probability of success. He follows Steensby in equating Helluland with northern Labrador and Markland with southern Labrador. He places the Wonderstrands on the Labrador coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and suggests that Streamfirth lay somewhere in the region of the Mingan River in the St. Lawrence estuary. As to the exact location of Wineland itself, he is much less certain and wavers between Nova Scotia and New England with a bias towards the latter. The Wineland Voyages By John R. Swanton. (Smithsonian Miscsllaneous Collections, Vol. 107, No. 12: Publication 3906.) Pp. ii+81. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1947.) n.p.