Nova Scotia by Lesley Choyce Read Free Book Online Page A

lusting for riches and
hoping to harvest and harass more than to
homestead.
    The Fierce Adventurers
    While Newfoundland can probably lay
a sincere claim to the arrival of the early Norse explorers, it is
reasonably safe to say that these fierce, proud but violent people
also came ashore on Nova Scotia, where they established temporary
settlements. The Icelandic sagas provide accounts of voyages to a
place known as “Vinland the Good” and it has been widely debated as
to exactly where Vinland was – perhaps as far south as
Massachusetts or as far north as the coast of Labrador. The name
“Vinland” may not have suggested grapes at all, but in translation,
simply grass – a land of grass. The grassy expanse of L’Anse aux
Meadows in northern Newfoundland fits that description and it is
here that archaeologists have found the remains of homesteads
created by Norse men and women.
        The sagas include reports of encounters with Native North
Americans called “Skraelings,” who may have been Inuit, Beothuck,
Mi’kmaq or some other Native group. While these people were
considered by the Norse to be hostile and dangerous, a quick scan
of many of these sagas and legends reveals that the Norsemen
themselves were anything but easy to get along with. They were
quick to anger, aggressive and likely to make enemies of whoever
crossed their path, and it’s safe to assume that the Skraelings
recognized the imminent danger of these newcomers and tried to
defend their homes.
        The Icelandic sagas were written in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries and were based on oral tradition. Thus they are
full of half-truths, exaggeration and even contradiction.
Nonetheless, we know that Vikings certainly came this way, they
settled, they fought, and they died or retreated. Unlike those
other Europeans who were to follow, however, they understood the
harshness of the cold North Atlantic winters and probably had made
better psychological and physical preparation. They were a northern
people, turbulent but resilient.
        Although evidence of visits by Leif Eriksson and Thorfinn
Karlsefni to Newfoundland is quite compelling, the case for Viking
visits to Nova Scotia remains tentative at best. However, not far
from Yarmouth a stone was discovered which is believed to have an
inscription written in ancient Icelandic. Known as the Yarmouth
Stone, this piece of rock has been deciphered by the researcher
Henry Phillips to say “Harkussen Men Varn” or “Harko’s son
addressed the men.” Harko was one of the men reported to have
travelled with Thorfinn Karlsefni. In 1939 Olaf Strandwold, another
researcher hot on the trail of the meaning of this rock, deciphered
the message as “Leivur Eriku Resr” or “Leif to Erik raises,”
implying that the rock was a monument recording praise from Leif
Eriksson to his father. One of Strandwold’s critics, however,
suggests that he was a man who was “able to find runes in any
crevice or groove and decipher them,” while others who have seen
the stone suggest that the markings are more likely Mi’kmaq in
origin.
    The Wealth of Whales
    Basque fishermen from the Bay of
Biscay prided themselves on being great whalers and there is a
record of whaling going on there as early as 1199, although it most
likely goes even further back. In the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, whaling was a Basque monopoly and their catch was
plentiful along their own shores until the sixteenth century, when
they had depleted their own stock and were forced to travel further
for the kill. They went to Spain, Scotland, Iceland and
Newfoundland. The European harvest of the sea has rarely been a
cautious or concerned endeavour. The message was clear, even as
early as this, that the sea did not provide a limitless resource,
though this myth has persisted to our own time and may continue to
do so until all species of commercial value are
eradicated.
        Whatever their environmental shortcomings, Basque