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On August 6th 1975, Pete Hunt
and I set out on a journey into the Greenland wilderness in
search of the Viking settlements that had been deserted in the
15th Century. The whole topic of these settlements has been
well covered by the specialists: our investigation is unlikely
to shed much new light on the subject.
Our objectives were two-fold.
Firstly, with the help of our friend Karl Christenson, we were
able to locate some of the new sites listed by Ove Bak. Secondly,
as we were travelling on foot over rough ground and our loads
were bound to be restricted, we hoped in our basic approach
to get a closer feel for the land those early settlers inhabited
and their way of life. Our food was to be supplemented by what
the land offered, our luxury a flysheet with which we made shelter
along the grey skirts of the seaboard, shores of stillness:
the derelict stone circles that intermittently along our way
betrayed the erstwhile presence of a summer campsite of the
Greenlander, the more distant memory of the nordbo, when streams
sounded like the laughter of fair-haired children, by the dull
lapping of waves.
We set off up the valley from
Stordalens Havn in an afternoon of warm sunshine and blue skies,
the Greenland summer. The trip was to be characterised by its
fine weather and the inevitable fly and mosquito. Around us
was the smell of scrub and berry, occasional birdsong and running
water; always the sounds of wind and running water in the northlands,
echoing downstream from the high places. Above us loomed the
spectacular mountain scenery in which we had climbed during
the preceding seven weeks: blank rock walls, toppling pinnacles,
falling glaciers, and brilliant snowfields. We were headed however
for the milder land that rolls down seawards from these hills,
where the Norse settlers would find rich fisheries, grazing
land for their sheep, and occasional patches of soil offering
a small yield: these were the factors which made the Viking
settlements possible. We reached the col above Stordalens, and
in the fading light found a large boulder against which we set
our flysheet for the night. Outside it was cool and the sky
filled with the unchanging stars, gazed at through the ages.
I lay back on a bag of soft scrub and we thought how our walk
was now underway.
In early morning we were awakened
by the first mosquito, to the smell of berries and a light dew
on the scrub. Slowly the full life of the morning entered us
as we tossed off our slumbers and made an easy breakfast - another
fine warm day. Reindeer moss made good tinder and adding willow
scrub to this we soon had a good fire leaping skywards; this
got rid of the mosquitoes for a while. Then followed a hard
hot descent to Tasiussaq lake, down over lawns of thick crowberries,
and lower still the ripe bilberries that tasted good. At last
- the sea and the Norse coastlands! As we neared, the breeze
rose off the water and rid us of the flies - a fresh sea smell
and, out over the bay, gentler green hills rolling down to windy
headlands, the sun dazzling on the waves. A short way from us
we saw Karl Christenson and his family turning the hay behind
his sheep farm; he was the last Dane to settle and set up a
farm in Greenland, and we walked down to the field to see him.
Karl Christenson always gave
us the most genuine welcome whenever we visited him, and we
spent many hours speaking with him, in broken English, signs
and drawings. To us he was of special interest: he was a modern
settler who was enduring many of the hardships inherent in the
Norse tradition. He had some luxuries, such as for lighting
and warmth, a radio to keep him in touch with the outside world,
and a supply of wood obtained when the American airbase at Narsassuaq
was partially dismantled; for wood has a particular value in
this almost treeless land. But his struggle to carry on is a
late, perhaps the last, chapter in the story of the nordbo.
Even his farm is a continuation of their tradition, set on the
site of an old Viking homestead, with a small patch of fertile
soil of no great size.
Like the early settlers, his
hardest time was the initial period of load carrying, building
and starting up. For a year and a half he lived in a tent and
a small hut while he built his home. In the winter the snow
was several metres deep - he showed us a picture … 'as high
as this house,' he said and it was. He now lives quite comfortably
in a modest farmstead, well furnished. Each year he retains
300 sheep; the rest are slaughtered in September. His pasturage
is very large, and even in the high coires where we had our
advance camps we found that sheep tracks were often in evidence,
restricted only by the sea, the high hills, and the largest
rivers. Karl had tried raising yaks, but the pasture was too
mean. In the summer he gets as much fish as he can from Tasiussaq
inlet, bringing in good quantities daily in two small nets.
Once he gave us 6 arctic sea trout which we ate in the mountains,
and they tasted incredibly good. Along with seals that he shoots,
he dries and salts the fish for the winter when the sea has
frozen over to five feet or more, except for out in open water
where herring can still be caught if necessary. In summer he
grows radishes, and in winter he hunts fowl in the hills.
There was, we felt, a continuity
over the years about this way of life, a real link with the
north folk who had passed and whose traces we sought. But it
is a life of strong contrasts, a real frontier struggle, epitomised
by the polar bear skull on the mantelpiece shot from 25 yards
outside his house. After the fine scenery, plentiful fish and
good smells of the long summer days, come the dark and severe
winter, the unexpected storm, the impossible mountains that
rise towards the ice-cap beyond the small dwelling and its strip
of land. Continuity was always precarious here and ceased in
the fifteenth century with the inexplicable disappearance of
the nordbo. There was probably a climatic change that made the
ground untenable, the winters growing longer and colder. They
passed unrecorded out of history. Karl Christenson recognises
this precarious struggle and is not sure how long he can go
on. Around him in the pastures he can see the ruins of a tradition
of which he may be the last inheritor.
We talked into the late afternoon
so that evening came upon us almost unnoticed. We said goodbye
to Karl and set off in the failing light, watching an amazing
red sunset over the western waters, passing strings of drying
fish hung out over the crimson-coloured waters, sea and sky
burning darkest red and then becoming almost indistinguishable
in the darkness of night.
The next day we cut over the
hills to the cod-filled Amitsuarssuk fjord, where flotillas
of fish inexplicably queued up to be caught on a length of string
and an improvised piece of bent wire. It was a detour of some
miles in order to locate a site with a secretive craggy cave.
It was a day to be remembered, overcast, humid, and pestilential
with clouds of small-fly that got in hair, up nostrils, down
throat, and under clothes, generally making the simplest activities
nearly intolerable. Moreover, when we identified Site 100 it
seemed to be, in Pete's immortal and disillusioned words, 'Just
a pile of old boulders.' The supposed walls of what Herr Bak
believed to be a possible farm seemed to be simply the banks
and boulder debris of an old stream channel. It was a disappointment.
However, as a breeze rose to give some relief from the insects,
overhead an eagle came across the fjord to see what we were
about. We pitched our flysheet on a nice site by the stream,
ate, and went to sleep. Next thing it was daybreak again, the
short northerly night was over and the sun had returned. We
set up a camp over the hills at another sea-inlet also called
Tasiussaq, a pleasant spot where bilberries were plentiful and
there weren't as many flies. I tried tickling the trout, but
was always too quick or too slow. We enjoyed some sunny weather
during our protracted dalliance here among the bilberry fields.
But once again, Site 48 this time failed to materialise, although
certainly this was a hospitable place in which to have settled.
However one evening, after
retracing our steps to recover some food we had dumped from
our heavy packs, we were walking hard to return to our flysheet
before dark. We were stumbling through the thick undergrowth,
and keeping an eye out for a 'small farm'. I got soaked a couple
of times, falling in a stream and a boghole. The sunset had
passed and the last light was failing in the west. Just as we
had concluded we would never find it, I stumbled across the
outline of a small house. It was only 20 ft by 8 ft and lay
some 200 yards east of the valley river. It was sheer good luck,
and a turning point. Pulling aside willow scrub we found the
regular pattern of a stone wall, and there at dusk as we uncovered
growth of many years we found the small farmstead. An intensity
and enthusiasm had descended on us unexpectedly. As hastily
as we arrived, we pressed on into the night leaving the lonely
farm behind, and the stars were over the icy peaks. A shooting
star fell out of the darkness. Long after dark we stumbled back
to the flysheet. A mystery and calm had come down on us, and
we fell contently asleep.
With little remaining food
except what we could gather, we now intended to push southwards
to the well-preserved ruins at Herjolfnaes, opposite Frederiksdal,
and to the nearby 'Harbour of Sand' from whose beach the Vikings
are believed to have set out on their perilous journeys back
to Scandinavia. Our good fortune was holding out and the following
day was the hottest yet as we set off southwards, down the long
peninsula. A few miles south of the bilberry campsite we found
several eskimobebyggelse; they were probably fishing huts, close
by the shore. It was a fine day by the sea and as we gained
height we had a great view of a pattern of islands and blue
lakes stretching south to the Atlantic and its mighty blue-white
icebergs, everything sparkling in the sun. This was very wild
country. Huge valleys and untrodden mountains fell sharply to
the sea. At a flatter spot we came down upon the indistinct
ruins of a large settlement, Site 49, on a raised area 50 yards
up from the shore. There were several buildings, none particularly
well-preserved, at this the sole hospitable spot before the
coastline became steep and broken. Nearby we camped, Pete lit
a woodfire that burnt through the dusk, I stuffed my bed with
crowberry scrub for a good night's sleep. The coast became rougher
and next day, while lowering our rucksacks down an awkward rocky
corner, we lost them both over a two hundred foot cliff. They
came to rest breathtakingly close to a further drop down into
the fjord and we clambered down to retrieve the contents that
were scattered over the hillside. The long day grew overcast
and with tired bodies we finally arrived at the great sandy
arena which rolls down to 'Sandhavn'.
That day the bay at the very
tip of Greenland seemed indeed a dreary place that might have
seen the separation of loved ones, sad farewells, and uncertain
departure over the ice and waters. As it got darker we pressed
on, with summary searches for a couple of sites revealing nothing.
The final miles to the south were particularly bleak and desolate,
just the wind and the grass and very little else, except grey
clouds piling in from the Atlantic. We had finally got to Herjolfnaes
and, passing obvious ruins, we chose a sheltered spot for the
flysheet and ate and went out, very tired after a hard day.
The night brought fairly heavy showers of rain.
The weather was clearing up
next morning, a low mist coming in over the ice from the open
seas, and then dispersing. It was perhaps the worst day for
flies. After breakfast we saw the remains of a farm near our
camping site, and then strolled over to the fine remains of
a Norse church. This site, 11m x 6m, has been excavated by professional
archaeologists. In the afternoon Queen Margaret of Denmark -
on a royal tour of Greenland - landed surrealistically by helicopter
to have a look at these ecclesiastical remains of the church
and its neighbouring graveyard. Ten minutes later she and her
entourage of officials were away again, with their helicopter
and all traces of modern civilisation. Judging by the number
of church ruins that have been located, the Norse settlers must
have set their standards by a simple Christian faith, far removed
though their setting might have been from the rest of the civilised
world. We remained with the flies and these ruins; they have
an enduring quality about them, stubbornly unchanging, the remnants
of a faith come into the land.
We moved on round the other
side of the peninsula with its lofty mountains, now at the tail
end of our 'Norse feich trip'. We headed north up Narssapsarga,
camped on the seashore, and continued over pleasant shores until
we returned once more to Amitsuarssuk fjord. From here we continued
to Karl's sheep farm and pitched our flysheet on high windy
gravel above the north Tasiussaq inlet. There followed a larger
meal than we had eaten for many days - we knew that we could
easily reach basecamp and friends the next day. For the last
time we enjoyed stewed bilberries which we had gathered during
the day. In the lull of the serene growing evening came a realisation
that our feich trip and the expedition itself was all coming
to an end. Over the waters the hills in the west stood still
and unchanging, the dispersing clouds almost motionless, hung
over the calm seas. No sound or movement came from the sheep
farmer's house along the coast. I felt full of the good things,
pleasantly unwashed, resolved. Looking over at the enduring
sanctity of the high places, the sad song of the hills, where
time comes to rest, I could feel how fine it would be to settle
here by the still waters. But in the intensity of a few moments
you tend to forget the hard realities and responsibilities of
the living world. In the morning the spell was broken, rain
was pouring in, and we left Karl Christenson and the viking
seaboard and headed away.
Postscript:- from Bratahlid
At the end of the expedition
we had to wait several days before flying out from Narsassuaq.
We had travelled back into relative civilisation. We felt unkindly
separated from the Greenland we had known. There were hotels,
crowds, tractors, even cars and worse still we felt like tourists
ourselves. Some of us hitched a ride across the bay to get away
a little, and enjoyed walking over some hills in fine weather
to a hamlet of Norse remains in a lonely back valley. On our
last night, camped up on a hill above Erik the Red's settlement
at Bratahlid we lit a large bonfire which spat and sparked in
the dark. It was a still cool night and we sat out under those
infinite shining heavens watching the fire burn out. Then the
aurora started up quivering across the icy northern skies, mysterious,
urgent, inexplicable. Crouched beneath these sparkling lights,
with the smell of woodsmoke and scrub and berry in the air,
little seemed to have changed since our Norse forebears and
their families dwelt there, over the heaving centuries, and
no doubt as mystified and overwhelmed at such impossible and
unfathomable sights.
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