When the were in Nunavut A thousand years ago, the ancientV Norsei toldk rumoursin of a mysteriousg places called , far to the northwest of Europe. Now, a millennium later, clues are turning up on that could overhaul the history of the Arctic. Story by Margo Pfeiff Photography by david coventry

44 up here JuLY/AUGUST 2013 JULY/AUGUST 2013 up here 45 VIKINGS WERE HERE: In the rich sod of the Nanook site at Baffin Island’s Cape Tanfield, Patricia Sutherland thinks she’s uncovered proof of Norse inhabitation – everything from the telltale design of the stone huts to traces of smelted bronze.

“Look at this!” says Patricia Sutherland. It’s 2002 and she’s She says that here, on southern Baffin Island, was a trading post kneeling on the tundra, pointing her trowel at a whale bone at the occupied by the ancient Norse. Her theory is controversial. But if it’s bottom of the muddy trench she’s been excavating. The bone has correct, it could rewrite the history books. been fashioned into a spade to cut sod into building blocks, the kind of artifact she would expect to find in old Norse sites in . It’s long been known that the Norse were active in the far To Sutherland, one of Canada’s top Arctic archeologists, the sod- reaches of the North Atlantic. About a millennium ago, seafaring chopper isn’t the only thing that seems out of place at the Nanook ar- Norwegian traders, some worshipping Odin and others having cheological dig. Here on the treeless barrens just outside Kimmirut, converted to Christianity, island-hopped in search of resources. Nunavut, the structure that she’s unearthing – a large, rectangular They sailed from Scandinavia to the Shetlands, Orkney Islands, foundation of rock and sod – just doesn’t fit with the landscape. Ireland, the Faroes, Iceland, and finally to the western shore of That’s exactly what American archeologist Moreau Maxwell Davis Strait, where colonies were established by Erik the Red, a thought when he first began digging here in the 1960s. “He convicted murderer and charismatic marketer. He named this new couldn’t explain the structures he was finding,” says Sutherland. place “Greenland,” convincing settlers to join him in the protected “He said it was complicated.” fjords of the island’s southwest. For centuries, the Norse thrived Complicated – that’s exactly what Nanook has proven to be for there, supporting themselves by farming and sending trade goods Sutherland, a former curator of archeology for ’s Museum of to Europe – everything from walrus ivory to live polar bears for Old Civilization. But now, after seven summers of excavation here, and World royal courts. TOP: This tiny willow-root basket from a Dorset site on Baffin is identical to one found in Norse Greenland. TOP RIGHT: A Dorset carving in walrus ivory, possibly depicting the face of a Viking visitor. MIDDLE: 12 years of meticulously poring over artifacts and piecing together It was during the colonization of Greenland that the snow-capped Sutherland’s assistants gingerly remove a whale skull from the Nanook dig. ABOVE: A Dorset ‘antler wand’ clues, she thinks she’s got the site figured out. mountains of Baffin Island were most likely sighted far to the west.> inscribed with what appears to be a European face and a Dorset one. LEFT: A Dorset mask.

46 up here JuLY/AUGUST 2013 JULY/AUGUST 2013 up here 47 TOP: Discovered on Baffin Island, this Norse-style cordage matches yarn found at Viking settlements in Greenland. But was it Norsemen who brought it to Nunavut, or was it local natives? TOP RIGHT: A Dorset depiction of a man in what appears to be Eu- ropean-style dress – possible evidence of face-to-face encounters. ABOVE: Kimmirut’s Ooloopie Killiktee, a polar bear monitor at the Nanook dig, surveys the Cape Tanfield shoreline for signs of danger.RIGHT: A Dorset figurine of a carved-ivory polar bear head.

ENVISIONING THE PAST: When Sutherland surveys the Nanook site, she sees a Norse outpost used for centuries to trade with the local Dorset people.

A cryptic reference to Baffin was first penned by a 14th-century Ice- Despite this, or perhaps because of it, whispers of Norse in Can- in southern Greenland. Fragments of objects made of smelted metal

G R E E N L A N D landic scribe who recorded events that had taken place more than ada’s Northland have lingered for centuries. Mentions of “blonde have also turned up on Bathurst and Devon Islands. Had or D N A L E two centuries earlier. In the Saga of Erik the Red, Erik’s adventurous Eskimos” appeared from 1821 onwards in the journals of explor- their predecessors, the Dorset, scavenged them from Norse ship- C I son, Leif Erikson, sailed westward from Greenland around 1000 ers William Parry, John Ross, John Rae and John Franklin. In 1910, wrecks? Had they journeyed to Greenland and brought them back? NORTHWESTERING: AD, soon encountering a desolate stretch of land. Rowing ashore, Arctic ethnologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, an Icelandic-Canadian, Or had the Norse themselves come here, seeking to trade? One thousand years he was unimpressed: “[T]he land was like a single flat slab of rock wrote in his diary about an isolated group of tall Inuit on southwest Not long ago, this last theory was commonly accepted: The B A ago, Norsemen founded F F I N twin settlements in I S Western to the sea. This land seemed of little use.” Erikson dubbed it Hellu- Victoria Island: “There are three men here whose beards are almost Norse had ventured west, possibly well into Nunavut, Nunavik and L A N southern Greenland. D Settlement land – “land of stone slabs” – and turned his back on it, heading the colour of mine, and who look like typical Scandinavians.” But the gulf of St. Lawrence, to exchange goods with the aboriginals of Then they explored the southwards. Soon he found Markland (“land of forests,” possibly Helluland? shores farther west, DNA testing on the Victoria Islanders revealed no Nordic genes. North America. “But that idea fell out of favour,” says Sutherland. Eastern Labrador) and then Vinland (“land of wine” or “of pasture” – New- In the 1970s, archeologist Peter Schledermann of the Arctic So it was controversial when Newfoundland’s L’Anse aux Meadows Settlement including a forbidding Nanook site place called Helluland – foundland). At a site now called L’Anse aux Meadows, he built a Institute of North America found Norse artifacts at several sites on was declared to be a Norse outpost. And when National Museum possibly Baffin Island. small station for repairing ships and gathering cargo before return- Ellesmere’s east coast. There were knife blades, pieces of oak with of Canada archeologist Tom Lee announced in the 1960s that he’d ing to Greenland the following spring. Helluland barely received inset wooden dowels, copper, medieval chainmail, ship rivets and uncovered Norse camps on Quebec’s Ungava Bay, “he brought the Markland? another mention, and by the mid-1400s, the Norse had vanished woven woollen cloth. These relics dated from between the 13th and wrath of the entire archeological community on his head,” says L’Anse aux Meadows even from Greenland. 15th centuries, many proven to have originated in Norse settlements Sutherland. After that, most scholars shied away.> Confirmed Viking site possible Viking site Vinland? 48 up here JuLY/AUGUST 2013 JULY/AUGUST 2013 up here 49 Vikings CONTINUED ~Servicing the Sahtu and Delta Regions.

Then Pat Sutherland came along. In that was very soft –­ and very European. ATTENTION 1977, as an expert in indigenous archeology, Armed with this knowledge, Sutherland she was hired by Parks Canada to do a sur- set off in the year 2000 to re-open the most vey of potential archeological sites in what tantalizing site on Baffin Island: Maxwell ANGLERS would become Quttinirpaaq National Park Moreau’s puzzling Nanook dig in Tanfield on . She’d just arrived when, Valley, about 20 kilometres from Kimmirut. Going sport amidst the lingering June snow, she spotted In Sutherland’s eyes, Nanook would have fishing within the something lying on a bald patch of tundra. been a perfect spot for the Norse: It had ample It was a long, thin piece of metal. Not being sod, a sheltered harbour large enough for Inuvialuit Settlement familiar with Norse artifacts, she had no idea wooden ocean-going ships, and plentiful wild- what it was. But the Parks expert to whom she life – especially Arctic fox, the same creatures Region(IRS)? showed it was shocked. “It was one arm of a that prompted the Hudson’s Bay Company to bronze balance used by professional Norse choose Kimmirut as their first Baffin post. It was barely 300 kilometres from Greenland – If you are planning to go recreational angling within the ISR, keep in mind that traders in the Old World for weighing silver,” you may be fishing on Inuvialuit private lands. You are required to register says Sutherland. two or three days’ sailing. “Why people have with the local Hunters & Trappers Committee (HTC) or the Fisheries Joint Six years later, on Axel Heiberg Island, trouble accepting that Norse would have been Management Committee (FJMC) prior to fishing on Inuvialuit private lands. Sutherland again stumbled across a strange here is crazy,” Sutherland says. www.north-wrightairways.com For more information contact the local HTC or FJMC at the following numbers: artifact. Carved on a single piece of antler were After six centuries, Helluland was back in Proud Partners two radically dissimilar faces – one with typi- the press and Sutherland’s fellow archeologists The Sahtu region’s premier air service Inuvik IHTC (867)777- 3671 cal round Dorset features, and another, long closely followed her progress. “I knew the proj- Providing scheduled and chartered flights Aklavik AHTC (867)987- 2723 and thin, with what appeared to be a beard ect was controversial because everything to do Tuktoyaktuk THTC (867)977- 2457 and heavy eyebrows. To her it was an iconic with Norse is controversial,” she says. “It had NORMAN WELLS BASE INUVIK BASE Ulukhaktok OHTC (867)396- 4808 portrayal of two very different cultures. She the potential to shift the paradigm about what Main #: 867-587-2288 867-777-2220 Paulatuk PHTC (867)580- 3004 Fisheries Joint ManageMent CoMMittee Sachs Harbour SHHTC (867)690- 3028 puzzled over it for a long time, and began to was happening in the Arctic 1,000 years ago.” rethink the long-held belief that Norse had not Known to be single-minded and unflinch- FJMC (867)777- 2828 WWW.FJMC.CA NORTH WRIGHT AIRWAYS LTD. crossed paths with the Dorset. ingly committed, Sutherland was prepared for Your SAHTU/DELTA Connector Email: [email protected] In 1993 Sutherland was invited to join a the uphill battle. She had received her share dig at a medieval Greenlandic farm called Gar- of criticism over the years, as is the norm in den Under Sandet in Greenland. Here, she a field where radical new concepts are fiercely quickly learned about all things Norse. One scrutinized. So to test the strength of her own of the finds made there was part of a loom thesis, she analysed multiple lines of evidence with threads of yarn still attached. Six years simultaneously. She excavated new artifacts later, while studying artifacts at the Museum while at the same time working with experts of Civilization, she sifted through a collection in fields as diverse as Norse architecture, an- excavated in the 1970s and 80s by Father Guy cient textiles, insect remains and DNA. Her WE MINE FOR Mary-Rousselière, a French-Canadian anthro- challenge was to build a multi-pronged case pologist and missionary based in . that the ancient Norse had lived in Nunavut. She stopped dead at the sight of two soft pieces It wasn’t easy. During long days of fieldwork PROGRESS of yarn, three metres long, that looked exactly at Nanook, the site became increasingly com- like the wool she’d seen in Greenland. Sure plex. Moreau Maxwell’s excavations had dam- enough, when she took them to a textiles ex- aged the walls of the mysterious stone dwell- pert, they matched precisely with wool woven ing, but she soon discovered a new wall: layers at Garden Under Sandet in the late 13th century. of sod chunks alternating with large stones, Sutherland knew she was on to some- some cut and shaped in a style reminiscent of thing. She hunkered down in the museum’s European stone-masonry. Nanook also yielded collection, searching through more than a trove of artifacts not usually associated with 15,000 Arctic objects and comparing them the Inuit or Dorset, including the whalebone to confirmed Norse artifacts from Greenland, spade, and notched wooden “tally sticks” to Russia and Europe. Over 100 strands of yarn record trade transactions. There were remains came to light, hailing from previously exca- of European rats that couldn’t have survived vated sites ranging from northern Baffin Is- long in the Canadian Arctic, more strands of land to northern Labrador. The Inuit and their Scandinavian-style spun yarn, and European predecessors, Sutherland knew, didn’t use whetstones designed for sharpening metal wool – but the Norse did, making garments knives that didn’t exist in indigenous North- and even sails from it. The yarn was identified erners’ toolboxes. One particularly intriguing mmg.com as having been spun with a spindle, requiring item was a carved wooden figure with a beard great skill to bind the short, smooth fibres of and heavy ridge over his eyes: either eyebrows wild animals like Arctic hare. It would have or the edge of a cap common among medieval been a laborious task, but the result was yarn European merchants. >

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It wasn’t a straightforward dig. Among this just visited during the warm summers, she jumble were classic hunter-gatherer artifacts speculates that it was just one of many sites like fur-cleaning tools and needles ­– things throughout the region where Norse traded Inuit or Dorset might use. And there were iron and wood for furs and ivory, luxury items issues with the radio-carbon dating: results coveted in Europe. pointing to the 8th century, hundreds of years If she’s right, Nanook would become only before the Norse arrived even in Greenland. the second confirmed Norse site in North Devoted to Excellence Part of the problem, says Sutherland, is that America, after Leif Erikson’s L’Anse aux “everything on the site was saturated with seal, Meadows. But while Erikson only stayed for a walrus and whale oil.” Marine-mammal mate- winter, and had no apparent dealings with the Executive & Business Suites rials are known to skew radio-carbon results, local aboriginals, Nanook is very different. dating them too old. The site seems to point at “The Northern world,” says Sutherland, Renowned Licensed Dining having been occupied several times, and one “was not a remote, marginal place 1,000 years Listed in “Where to Eat in Canada” radio-carbon date confirms Tanfield Valley was ago, where nothing ever happened. The Norse Business Services: occupied in the 14th century, at the very time push west from Norway was a commercial en- Fax, Voice Messaging, Internet Norse settlers lived along nearby Greenland. terprise, for resource exploitation and trade. It Sutherland approached the Geological Sur- was the start of early globalization.” In-room Co ee & Cable TV vey of Canada to unearth more clues. Using a process not commonly employed in archeol- For the 63-year-old Sutherland, 2012 Conference Facilities ogy, a technique called energy-dispersive spec- looked to be her bonanza year: She presented troscopy, they painstakingly scanned wear- her metallurgy findings and in November THE WORLD’S FINEST FISHING grooves on more than 20 whetstones from was featured in a major National Geographic Complimentary Shuttle Nanook and similar sites, looking for smelted article. That same month, she was in a docu- metal. The results were spectacular: micro- mentary broadcast on the popular CBC show www.discoverylodge.com scopic streaks of bronze, brass and smelted The Nature of Things. Tel: (867) 979-4433 Fax: (867) 979-6591 iron, forming positive evidence of European But in April of that year, she’d been abruptly Plummer’s Great Slave Lake Lodge metallurgy. To some scholars – even Suther- dismissed from her 28-year-long tenure at the Plummer’s Lodges on Great Bear Lake 0383-A010_YK1_4c_UHP_1/6 (4.833” x 2.333”)_FINAL land’s sceptics – this was the smoking gun. Museum of Civilization, and her Nanook Proj- She presented her preliminary results at a ect had been put on ice. Her husband, legend- meeting of the Council for Northeast Histori- ary Arctic archeologist Robert McGhee, was Plummer’s Tree River Lodge CLOSE TO EVERYTHING. cal Archaeology in St. John’s in October of last stripped of the emeritus status the museum ExplorE thE year. Afterwards, James Tuck, professor emeri- bestowed on him in 2008. Neither Suther- LIFE IS SUITE. tus of archeology at Memorial University, de- land nor the museum will comment on the clared, “While her evidence was compelling dismissals at the present time. before, I find it convincing now.” Sutherland’s firing, coming on the heels of the federal government’s roll call of shut- Let us fl y you to our lodges on Great Slave Sutherland, with more than three downs, funding cuts, media-muzzlings and and Great Bear Lakes for World Record Lake decades of Arctic archeology under her trowel layoffs in the science community, created a Trout and Grayling. Visit our Tree River Lodge in at Yellowknife and by now also a research fellow at the Uni- furor. One of her many supporters, Memorial Nunavut for the world’s biggest Arctic Char and Education District No. 1 versity of Aberdeen and an adjunct professor University’s Tuck, speculated to Macleans that world famous service. of archeology at Newfoundland’s Memorial Sutherland’s reinterpretation of Canadian his- University, is convinced Nanook was the site tory might not be in tune with the new man- of a Norse outpost dating from the 13th cen- date of her old institution, which is changing tury or so. The structures there strongly re- its name to the Canadian Museum of History semble confirmed Greenlandic Norse sites, and focusing narrowly on the country’s past right down to the shallow, stone-lined drain- 150 years. Other rumours are swirling that age system to funnel water from the site. with the Harper government’s ardent focus In the Heart of Downtown Ottawa! Sutherland says the stone-and-sod walls seem on Arctic sovereignty, evidence of Norwegians WWW.PLUMMERSLODGES.COM • Steps from shops, dining, entertainment to have been hastily constructed in compari- having set up shop in the Arctic a millennium • Condominium-sized 1 & 2 bedroom suites École J.H. Sissons • Complete kitchen, ensuite laundry room son to similar buildings in Greenland, per- ago might be too inconvenient to tolerate. [email protected] Mildred Hall School • Free local calls • Free WiFi • Indoor pool haps in a race against a rapidly approaching For Sutherland, the hardest blow is hav- N.J. Macpherson School winter. The close proximity of Dorset artifacts ing been cut off from her 12 years’ worth of Range Lake North School Special Summer Packages Available Online CALL TODAY FOR A FISHING and other remains suggests small bands of research material. For now the remarkable École Sir John Franklin High School ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME École William McDonald Middle School hunters likely camped nearby. Nanook site lies fallow. “More than anything, Sutherland believes the Norse travelled the I want to finish this project,” she says. “At this Ph: (867) 766-5050 Baffin and Labrador coasts for roughly 400 point in my life I feel it’s my legacy.” The full 5402-50th Ave. Yellowknife 130 Besserer Street, Ottawa years, from AD 1000 to AD 1400, to ply trade. saga of the Norse on Baffin has waited 1,000 1-800-267-1989 • 613-232-2000 While it’s not clear how many Europeans were yk1.nt.ca www.les-suites.com years to be told, but even now, the ending of 1.800.665.0240 at Nanook, nor whether they overwintered or the story remains a mystery.

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