L'Anse aux Meadows

vikings · archaeology · exploration · Canada

Norse explorers arrived. About 1,000 years ago, Vikings from Scandinavia sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and landed on the northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada. This was centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.

A real Viking settlement. L'Anse aux Meadows is an actual Norse village from around the year 1000, with the remains of buildings where Vikings lived, worked, and built ships. Archaeologists found evidence that they spent winters there and then sailed back home.

Uncovered in the 1960s. For centuries, nobody knew the Vikings had come to North America. Then in the 1960s, archaeologists started digging at L'Anse aux Meadows and discovered the ruins of houses, tools, and other artifacts that proved Vikings were there.

At the tip of Newfoundland. The site sits on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, an island in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. This location at the edge of the Atlantic made it a natural stopping point for Viking explorers.

Connected to Vinland. Many historians believe L'Anse aux Meadows is part of Vinland, the legendary land that Norse sagas described as a place west of Greenland with wild grapes and forests.