Sigurðardóttir 2001 : 173 – 88 ). Under these circumstances winters would have been
snow free, and the livestock could have grazed out of doors all winter.
The very size of the L’Anse aux Meadows settlement makes it certain that it is the site
of the Vinland sagas. Calculations of the Greenland population have shown that during
the time of the Vinland voyages, the entire Greenland colony had no more than 400 to
500 individuals (Lynnerup 1998 : 113 , 116 – 18 ). Given that it took anywhere between
seventy and ninety people to run L’Anse aux Meadows, it is clear that there was not
sufficient labour available to build and maintain another settlement of this size. Even if
as much as two-thirds of the crew were Icelandic, at least 5 per cent of the Greenland
population would have been required to operate L’Anse aux Meadows. Considerable
effort had gone into its construction. For the three halls alone, eighty-six trees had been
felled and dressed, and this does not include wood required for the large roofs and the
smaller structures. A minimum of 1 , 500 m^3 of sod had been cut for the walls and roofs.
The construction would have taken sixty men about two months. The small Greenland
colony could not have supported another site of this magnitude.
Butternut trees grow in the same areas as wild grapes. Thus we can state with
certainty that the Norse encounter with wild grapes is based on fact. In their wild state,
grapes grow in stands of deciduous trees, the vines winding themselves up the tree
trunks. These are the vínviðr, the grape trees of the sagas. Grapes and butternuts occur in
the hardwood forests of New Brunswick, as do large maples and oaks typical of New
Brunswick. Such hardwood was more valuable than the small birch and softwood lum-
ber of northern Newfoundland. It would have been a significant cargo to bring back to
Greenland.
Wine, and walnuts, were the type of luxury items served during large banquets by
chieftains to impress their followers and to gain influence and power. For Leifr and his
family, a potential supply of wine would have been a welcome prospect for maintaining
their new position as the first family of Greenland.
ES is clear that the grapes and lumber were obtained at Hóp, not at Straumfjo ̨rðr. Hóp
means inlet or lagoon, generally at the mouth of a river, a tidal saltwater lake protected
from the open sea by sand barriers at the entrance. North-eastern New Brunswick is
famous for its warm, shallow, tidal lagoons behind sandbars guarding the estuaries
of several large rivers, of which Miramichi is the largest (Figure 44. 4 ). Here, also, are
butternuts and grapes. This area was also home to the largest concentration of aboriginal
people in Atlantic Canada, the ancestors of the Mi’kmaq. This region is Hóp.
While butternut trees and wild grapes can also be found in New England, skin
canoes, a prominent feature associated with the native people of Hóp, were never used
there. The Mi’kmaq, on the other hand, did use hide canoes (Wallis and Wallis 1955 :
50 – 1 ).
Vinland must have been the entire area from the Strait of Belle Isle to the southern
shores of the Gulf. L’Anse aux Meadows was the gateway to its riches. Its location on the
Strait of Belle Isle and the western shore of Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula shows
that the main traffic south was through the Strait. The Strait is a natural funnel into the
Gulf of St Lawrence. The Gulf forms an inland sea, which can be circumnavigated by
beginning and ending the voyage in L’Anse aux Meadows. The southern part of the Gulf
is marked by large leafy forests, warm waters and great diversity in fauna and flora,
including wild grapes and walnuts. It is a rich landscape like that of legendary Vinland
but totally unlike that of Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland.
–– Birgitta Wallace––