The Farfarers

by Farley Mowat

  During the winter Beothuks had guided some of Farfarer’s men deep into the interior. That journey had produced a bonanza of fur, some of it trapped or snared by the Albans themselves, some traded for red-dyed woollen cloth, of which the Beothuks were especially fond. Amongst the furs were a number of prime marten pelts, of almost inestimable value in European markets.

  Farfarer bore a rich, varied, and heavy cargo when she departed for her home port. In addition to her own lading she carried, on consignment, the cargo of another Okak valuta clan whose hunters intended to spend a second summer at Tusker Bay.

  The ship was overladen but her people were not worried. She was a good sea boat and they intended to coast-crawl northward, taking shelter at the threat of bad weather.

  They had an easy time of it until they reached the Strait of Swift Waters, which was choked with Arctic pack. The ice posed such a danger to an overloaded skin vessel that there was no question of trying to proceed. They went ashore at what is now Flowers Cove to wait out the ice.

  June was almost over before the ice withdrew. By then all hands had become impatient. Once clear of the strait, Farfarer bore northward along the Labrador coast under a full press of sail. Then the southerly wind hauled into the nor’east. The skipper nevertheless elected to hold his course even though this meant beating into a rising wind and sea.

  Farfarer’s first tack took her several miles offshore and by the time she had come about and was heading in, wind and sea had risen markedly. She was soon taking water over her lee rail.

  At this juncture someone spotted a sail between them and the land. It took a while to ascertain that the stranger was heading towards them and a little longer to realize she was not Alban. Nor was she a merchant vessel! By the time Farfarer’s crew realized who and what she was, the knorr was bearing down upon them.

  They turned and ran. Overburdened and plunging heavily down the slopes of rising seas, Farfarer nevertheless made better weather of it than the pursuing knorr. All might have gone well for her and her people had not the tiller snapped off in the steersman’s hands.

  Farfarer sheered wildly and fell into the trough. There she lay, wallowing helplessly as the knorr bore down upon her. Then the Norse were alongside and grappling irons were flying through the spray.

  The Albans fought desperately. Women wielded walrus lances while their men leapt to the weather rail with hand axes and skinning knives. But they could not stem an assault by some thirty screaming warriors armed with swords and battleaxes.

  The Norse swarmed aboard in a welter of blood, some part of which was their own. The Alban men were driven into the stern sheets, where they were cut down. The last of them, with an arm shorn off at the elbow, managed to stay on his feet until a Norse axe split his head into two red hemispheres.

  The surviving women and youngsters were thrown aboard the knorr. Before the hour was out, Farfarer had been emptied of her cargo and stripped of everything of value, including her walrus-hide rigging and her sail.

  Then the Vikings cut her adrift. High in the water, manned only by her dead, Farfarer bore away on her final voyage. Wind and current set her shoreward and a few days later drove her onto the surf-swept beaches of Labrador’s Porcupine Strand.

  As it happened, a party of Tunit bound from the Great Island to Okak chanced upon her there. Wary of encountering Innu, they had been sailing their boat a safe distance offshore when they spotted the wreck. They downed sail, paddled cautiously in to investigate, and found what remained of Farfarer serving as a coffin for her crew.

  Assuming that Innu had been the killers, the Tunit wasted little time pushing off from that desolate beach, but they took with them the mutilated bodies of the dead Albans.

  The Tunit brought the corpses to Okak where it was soon realized the killings had not been the work of Innu. Deep cleavages of flesh and bone testified to the use of iron battle weapons. The dead men carried the unmistakable stigmata of Viking slaughter.

  It was not long before word that the Sons of Death had found their way to the waters of the new world spread up and down the coast.

  The news chilled all who heard it. Although the Okak people were shielded by the barrier of islands masking Okak Bay, they nevertheless stationed watchmen on the heights, and everyone travelling along the Labrador coast maintained a sharp and apprehensive lookout.

  In Alba-in-the-West there was less immediate concern, for it was believed unlikely that sea rovers would go so far afield or find so well-hidden a place.

  The greatest fear was of attacks upon merchant ships, for this was something which could disrupt, or even sever, the vital transatlantic trade.

  In or about the year 999 Erik Rauda made one more attempt upon the new world. The brief surviving saga account of this venture tells us more about Erik in his later years than about Alba.

  [Returning from a trip to Norway] Leif landed at Eriksfiord and went home to Brattahlid. . . . He soon proclaimed Christianity and the Catholic faith throughout the land. . . . Erik was slow in deciding whether or not to forsake his old beliefs. But [his wife] Thiodhild promptly embraced the new faith and had a chapel built at some distance from the house. . . . Thiodhild would not let Erik make love to her after she received the faith, which infuriated him.

  From this there arose the suggestion that he should investigate the country Leif had found. Thorstein Eriksson, a good and intelligent man blessed with many friends, was to be leader but Erik was invited along because everyone believed his luck and foresight would be a great help. They outfitted the ship in which Thorbjorn Vifilson had come out to Greenland. Twenty men were selected for the expedition. They took little with them except their weapons and provisions. . . .

  In high spirits over their plan, they sailed cheerily out of Eriksfiord. Then they were storm tossed on the ocean for a long time and could not maintain their desired course. They came in sight of Iceland and even saw birds from Irish waters. In truth their ship was driven hither and thither all over the ocean.

  In the autumn they turned back, worn out by hardship and exposure and exhausted by their labours. They arrived at Eriksfiord at the very beginning of winter.

  Then Erik said, “We were more cheerful when we put out of this fjord in the summer, but at least we are still alive. It could have been worse.”

  Erik would have been about sixty when this voyage took place—old by the standards of his time, but not too old to want to bed his wife or to go a-Viking.

  That this was a Viking cruise can hardly be doubted. The Erikers shipped a picked crew of twenty men who “took with them little except their weapons and provisions.” No trade goods, and no settlers’ gear. This was another war band.

  We do not know the details of what followed. Although the ship was battered by bad weather, it is hard to credit that she could have blown around the North Atlantic for three months or more without ever coming to land. Her people would long since have run out of food, water, and fuel, if not of patience and endurance.

  I conclude that they must have made the land on one or more occasions. But either they never found an Alban settlement or they did and were repelled by the inhabitants.

  One thing is certain. This time the raiders came home empty-handed. And the saga man made what excuses he could for their failure.

  Although Leif’s western voyage had been rewarding, his failure (and that of his father and brother) to find Alba seems to have put a temporary damper on enthusiasm for Norse ventures to the west.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE

  KARLSEFNI AND COMPANY

  FOR A TIME ERIK AND THORSTEIN’S UNREWARDING western venture cooled the Greenlanders’ interest in Alba. Then, in 1003, it was fired up again by a remarkable Icelander named Thorfinn Karlsefni.

  What follows is a condensation of the saga tellings of his story, together with my observations about motives.1

  Thorfinn Karlsefni was a successful Icelandic trader.2 One summer he outfitted his vessel for a voyage to Greenland. Snorri Thorbrandsson sh
ipped with him, along with forty other men. Bjarni Grimolfsson and Thorhall Gamlason also outfitted a vessel to go to Greenland with Karlsefni. They too shipped forty men.

  Because the saga identifies Karlsefni as a trader, historians have generally assumed he went to Greenland on a trading voyage. But consider: each of the two vessels involved in the venture carried forty people, of whom (as we shall later learn) thirty were fighting men. This many bodies together with the necessary provisions and equipment would have left scant space for trade goods.

  Normally a knorr required a working crew of only five or six. If she was trading to potentially hostile shores, she might carry a few additional men. But the only time a knorr would have been likely to carry thirty fighting men in addition to her working crew was when she was going off to war—or setting out on a Viking voyage, which amounted to much the same thing.

  Each of the two Icelandic vessels undoubtedly carried some trade goods, if only to ensure a good reception from the Greenlanders, but trade was not the primary purpose of this venture.

  Some historians have concluded that the size of the ships’ complements points to a colonizing expedition. But colonists normally consist of family groups of men, women, and children. A band of sixty warriors does not qualify.

  The same caveat obtains against settlement as against trading. The ships would have had insufficient room for even a modicum of settlers’ equipment and supplies, let alone enough livestock to establish viable herds.3

  Karlsefni normally traded to European ports, where, I conclude, he heard about the valuables coming from Alba-in-the-West and decided to try his luck in that direction, not as a trader but as a raider. The saga says, “The agreement was made between Karlsefni and his crew that they should share evenly in all the good things that came their way.”

  The voyage was uneventful as far as Greenland, where the two Icelandic crews spent the winter as Erik’s guests at Brattahlid. During the long, dark months, Karlsefni wooed and married the beautiful Gudrid, widow of unlucky Thorstein Eriksson.

  Enthusiastic discussion of Karlsefni’s plans now resulted in two more ships joining the proposed expedition. One was a Greenland vessel commanded by Erik’s third son, Thorvald, the other an Icelandic trading ship chartered by Freydis, Erik’s bastard daughter.

  The same summer when Karlsefni arrived in Greenland there also came a ship from Norway skippered by two Icelandic brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi. . . . Freydis journeyed from her home in Gardar to see these brothers. She asked them to take their ship to Vinland [with the expedition] and go halves with her of all the profits they might get. . . . It was agreed between Freydis and Karlsefni that each ship in the expedition should carry thirty fighting men, and some women also. But Freydis immediately broke the agreement and secreted five additional men aboard the brothers’ ship. . . . The expedition had 160 men when they sailed.

  Four ships carrying 160 people, most of them fighting men, represented a truly formidable force for that time and place.

  They sailed to the Western Settlement and then to the Bear Isles.4 Then they bore away to the southward for two days and, coming to land, went ashore and explored. They found lots of great flat rocks . . . and many white foxes. They called the place Helluland [Flatrockland].5

  From there they bore to the south and southeast for two days and reached a wooded country. . . . They sailed on southward and after two days came to a cape beyond which was a long sandy beach. They rowed ashore and found the keel of a ship on a headland, from which they named the headland Kialarness.

  A little farther south they put two Irish slaves ashore to scout the land. These found nothing notable except strand wheat and berries. Then:

  They stood into a fjord with an island in its mouth around which strong currents flowed. . . . They sailed into the fjord and called it Straumfjord [Streamfiord]. Here they unloaded their vessels and established themselves ashore.

  I assume that Karlsefni possessed more accurate information about the location of Alba-in-the-West, and of how to reach it, than did the Greenlanders. In addition to its relative latitude, he seems to have known that those travelling to it made their landfalls on the northern part of Labrador, then coasted south until they came to a strait famous for its strong currents. Thereupon they bore west through that strait into another sea, on the eastern shore of which Alba was located.

  As the squadron coasted south, the lookouts would have kept their eyes skinned, as seamen say. However, if they maintained even a minimal safe offing from the innumerable shoals, reefs, and “sunkers” of the Labrador shore, they might well have failed to see any signs of human inhabitants, native or otherwise.6

  Considering the seven-hundred-mile extent and the intricately indented nature of Labrador’s island-shrouded coast, and that the raiders took only about a week to traverse its entire length, the chances of spotting an Alban lodgement would have been remote. In the event, the only indication of a human presence the Norse found on the Labrador coast was the keel of a ship discovered on Porcupine Strand. Of a ship, be it noted. Not of a boat.7

  I judge that Karlsefni had been concentrating his time and effort on finding the strait which gave access to the Inland Sea and the new Alba. He appears to have glanced into both Groswater Bay and Sandwich Bay but, realizing they were not what he sought, sailed on until the expedition arrived at Belle Isle Strait.

  Now something peculiar happened. Instead of pushing south and west through Straumfjord, the Norse went ashore only a few miles from its easternmost headland, Cape Bauld. And here, at one of the bleakest, most weather-blasted, and inhospitable places to be found in Newfoundland, they prepared to spend a winter that was still some months distant.

  Such behaviour by colonists would be inexplicable. It would be equally bizarre by would-be traders. But it is precisely what one might expect of Vikings preparing to lair on the coast of a foreign land whose inhabitants had (or soon might have) good reason to be seriously hostile.

  Epaves (Wreck) Bay, as the place is ominously called, is so storm-lashed that its shores seem never to have attracted human residents, other than Karlsefni’s people. Having myself experienced a gale, albeit a summer one, at Wreck Bay, I can see why people in general, and mariners in particular, avoided it. My companion and I were so savaged by wind and sea from a nor’easter that we had to run our powered dory ashore through a thundering surf, nearly losing her in the process. When we tried to make our way across the barren, rocky landscape, we found ourselves scarcely able to stand against a wind roaring unobstructed all the way from Greenland. I have seldom been so severely buffeted by the storm gods; and this was in summer! I can scarcely imagine what life would be like at Wreck Bay in wintertime.

  Devoid of sheltering cove or harbour, approachable from seaward only through a chevaux de frise of rocks and reefs breaking white most of the time, this place could only have appealed to people desirous of remaining unvisited. But it was admirably situated to command the southern approaches to, and departure from, the strait. Distant vessels could be spotted from nearby heights, and knorrs or longboats, or both, could have sallied out unexpectedly from behind shielding islands to surprise unwary shipping.

  Wreck Bay was, in fact, an ideal sea-robbers’ roost. It was here that Karlsefni’s people built several wood-and-turf structures, excavated during the 1960s by the Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad. These now constitute the main attractions of L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site.

  Now they explored the country thereabouts. . . . They did nothing but reconnoitre.... They spent the winter there but had a hard winter and one for which they had not prepared. Fishing fell off and they grew short of food....

  In the spring they took counsel regarding their expedition. Thorhall the Hunter wished to go north around Furdurstrandir [Porcupine Strand] and Kialarness [Keel Point] and look for Vinland there.8 Karlsefni wished to go southward, believing that the farther to the southward he went, the better the chances would be.

  Although the Norse evide
ntly believed themselves to be in the general vicinity of Alba, reconnaisance failed either to locate it or even to indicate in which direction it should be sought. Disagreement between Karlsefni’s Icelanders and the Greenland contingent about what to do next seems to have been intense. There was even conflict within Thorvald Eriksson’s own crew, trouble which culminated in the defection of Thorvald’s right-hand man, Thorhall the Hunter, soon after the strait became free of ice.

  Setting out in a longboat with nine fellow Greenlanders, Thorhall, who was by all accounts a singularly thorny fellow, headed north along the Labrador, perhaps homeward bound. His luck ran out and he and his party were caught in a westerly gale. Their boat eventually drifted ashore in Ireland, where her crew met with even worse luck. “They were savagely treated and thrown into slavery; and there Thorhall was killed, according to what traders say.”

  Back at Wreck Bay the expedition really began to fall apart. Thorvald Eriksson determined to sail west through the strait with what remained of his party and see what he could find along the northern coast of the inland sea. He and his men spent the summer reconnoitring the north shore where, to their obvious disappointment,

  they discovered no dwellings of men or beasts. In one of the western islands they found a wooden storage shed, though no other works of man. They came back to the houses [at Epaves Bay] at harvest time. . . having achieved nothing of value.

  The sagas are silent about how Freydis Eriksdottir, with her Icelandic ship and Greenland warriors, spent the summer. Some historians believe she and her people accompanied Karlsefni to the southward, but this is almost certainly a misapprehension arising from a scribal confusion of Freydis with Karlsefni’s wife, Gudrid, during an incident at Hop.