Jellyfish Cove - L'Anse aux Meadows

Christopher Columbus gets his day today but there was a day a lot earlier than this.  While Columbus came across the Atlantic using the southern currents and trade winds some other folks came from the north about 500 years earlier - and because they landed in Newfoundland, Canada they are off our radar just as the Spanish in Texas in the 1500s are pushed aside by the more Anglo-Saxon  Jamestown and Plymouth Rock.   No sense being bitter. It is what it is.

Anyway, our Norse friends found a nice little cove to build a settlement or "quarters" - L'Anse-aux-Méduses or "Jellyfish Cove" - a delightful place with a north facing protected cover/harbor, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.  It appears that the cove of the jellyfish (later bastardized "meduses = meadows" was  a shortlived place and something of a "let's regroup before we head up that river or go farther south" type of place and the date is about 1000AD.

Tracing around in this historical stop in Vinland (the area west of Greenland) comes this entry:


Thorfinn Karlsefni (Old Norse: Þorfinnr Karlsefni, Icelandic: Þorfinnur Karlsefni) was an Icelandic explorer who circa 1010 AD led an attempt to settle Vínland with three ships and 160 settlers. Among the settlers was Freydís Eiríksdóttir, according to Grœnlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða, sister or half-sister of Leif Eriksson respectively. Thorfinn's wife Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir gave birth to a boy in Vínland, known as Snorri Guðríðarson , the first child of European descent known to have been born in the New World and to whom many Icelanders can trace their roots. The exact location of Thorfinn's colony is unknown but is believed to potentially be the excavated Norse camp at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.

We seem to associate all of this stuff with Leif Eriksonn (Leif - Erik's Son .. Erik the Red..remember all that?) and there is a settlement in Greenland, Brattahlíð (anglicised as Brattahlid) which was Erik the Red's estate in the Eastern Settlement Viking colony he established in south-western Greenland toward the end of the 10th century. The present settlement of Qassiarsuk, approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) southwest from the Narsarsuaq settlement, is now located in its place. The site is located about 96 km (60 mi) from the ocean, at the head of the Tunulliarfik Fjord, and hence sheltered from ocean storms. Erik and his descendants lived there until late in the 15th century. The name Brattahlid means "the steep slope".

So I sit here this Columbus Day thinking about Norse folks making their way here from a different direction and virtually unknown to us.  Perhaps the Italians have a better PR person or nothing rhymes with Brattahlid or Medusas that is as catchy as 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  Doesn't matter in the scheme of things..but I've got 4 grand daughters who look like they got off a Viking Long Boat and played along the shore of a cove someplace a 1000 years ago.