Dec 4, 2019
Image: Heiltsuk Mask w/red hair - UBC, Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada/Public Domain
In school, you learned the whitewashed version of history surrounding Christopher Columbus according to mentalflare.com. Well, it’s plainly untrue. Contesting the explorer’s claim to fame is less controversial now that the narrative has been blown apart by cold hard facts.
Long before Columbus thought he’d expertly sailed to India (then ended up in the Caribbean), westernized boots padded the soil of the Americas. His celebration party was in full swing while, thousands of miles to the north, they’d been hip to New World explorers for half a millennium — and archeologists may have just definitively proved it.
Each year all across America, people continue to celebrate Christopher Columbus as the grand explorer who first discovered the continent. Despite the knowledge that indigenous peoples already occupied the land, people just won’t let go of the Columbus fanfare.
Historical developments have made the Columbus tributes seem foolish. From the fact that Christopher only ever visited South America, to his vicious treatment of indigenous peoples, it’s a mystery why he’s still given a holiday. Particularly when there’s another guy who achieved what Chris couldn’t.
Around 1000 AD, Leif Erikson touched Viking boots to the soil of North America. What’s that saying? In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. You don’t have to be a mathematician to riddle out the obvious truth: Leif beat him to the punch. Or did he?
Skeptics aren’t so sure of the claim. Details are fuzzy about the Vikings, as historians had just two main texts to carve out the timeline for how things unfolded: The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Eric the Red. They weren’t the most reliable.
These texts are to be taken with a grain of salt, regarded as semi-historical. Still, thumbing through the Viking accounts, one thing remains crystal clear: Leif arrived at the America party way before the guy who gets all the credit.
Passed down through the generations of Vikings for over 200 years, the tales of Leif Erikson’s adventures — and some hogwash, too — were finally put into these texts. That’s all they had to convince the world of their claims, which at times, were a bit contradictory.
The version spelled out in Saga of the Greenlanders paints a more capable picture of Leif as a leader, where he first heard of the yet-unexplored Americas by talking shop with an Icelandic trader named Bjarni Herjolfsson.
In swapping stories, Bjarni described how, en route to Greenland ten years earlier, he’d flubbed some calculations. Rather than spotting the shores of home, he and his crew stared down an unfamiliar land. Three guesses where that could be!
Not trying to bite off more than he could chew, Bjarni sailed away from the unknown shores, never setting anchor or foot in the Americas. He couldn’t take claim as the original European to march across the soil of North America.
Hearing that bit of news, Leif salivated at the chance to wear that title himself. He gathered a swarthy crew of 35 tough individuals, purchased Bjarni’s ship, sails and all, and pursued the Americas with all of his fearsome Viking guts.
First, they passed by a place they dubbed Helluland, which translates to the comically simple “Stone-slab Land,” an area known today as Baffin Island. From there they passed a region that looked heavily wooded, and they named it as such.
This area was surely Labrador, Canada, though Leif’s crew called it Markland (“Forest Land” to us). It was in northern Newfoundland that they first filed off the boat and onto solid earth, coining the spot Leifsbudir, which you can call Leif’s Booths.
Onward they went, farther south into the place their people hadn’t ever explored. The group paused in an area rich in delicacies, mostly grapes, so they appropriately designated the area Vinland or Wineland. After a winter’s full of indulgence, it ended in chaos.
To paint the Vikings as wine sipping houseguests would be irresponsible. They were a notoriously lethal group, and they clashed with the indigenous peoples defending their homelands in northern Canada. After one bloody battle, Leif’s brother Thorwald lay dead. Leif gathered his people and retreated to Greenland.
But as The Saga of Erik the Red tells it, similar to the Christopher Columbus’ narrative, Lief bumped into America by accident. His ship was headed to Norway, and those pesky sea winds had another destination in mind.
The true heroes of this story were Leif’s sister-in-law, Gudrid, and her new husband, Karlsefni. Historians say the shift in perspectives was an attempt later in the 13th century to reframe Bishop Bjorn Gilsson, a descendant of the couple, as more relevant politically.
Rather than Leif’s Booths, they called their home base Straumfjord or Ford of the Currents. It, too, was in Northern Newfoundland. Basically, Gudrid and Karlsefni directed their band of 70-80 Vikings to gather natural resources they could haul back to Greenland.
Once those stories finished, Leif’s trail went cold. The last time he’s mentioned in recorded history was when his son took over as chieftan in 1025 AD, though there’s only note of his actually living until 1019 AD. Given his prominence, no doubt he had a proper Viking sendoff.
But were these accounts fact or fiction? Well, a crucial discovery in 1961 gave the old Viking texts much needed support. Norwegian archaeology husband and wife duo Helge and Anne Ingstad were guided by a local to the “old Indian camp” that left them curious.
After walking through eight separate sod-covered structures, they called in a team to investigate further. The area, called L’Anse aux Meadows, sits right at the tip of Newfoundland. Their initial excavations stretched into an eight-year study of countless treasures.
All signs pointed Norse! The area proved consistent with detailed descriptions of Vinland. Artifacts galore sat on the site nearly a thousand years after they’d been left by Leif’s men, and, given the loom, spindle and needle recovered, women too!
October 9th is national Leif Erikson day, so tug your beards and raise your horns to the brawny Viking explorer who caused less problems than the man credited with “discovering” America. Still, the Natives laid first claim — and even that was contentious!
The First Nation indigenous to British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest, the Heiltsuk people have laid claim to the remote Triquet Island for nearly 5,000 years. But archaeologists have dismissed their claim of ownership for one glaring reason…
The continental glacier that formed over Canada during the last Ice Age would’ve also covered Triquet Island, making it uninhabitable. But even with the facts stacked against the Heiltsuk, a small group of researchers took it upon themselves to uncover the truth once and for all.
The archaeologists began an extensive excavation of the remote island in the hope of discovering traces of a past civilization. What they found there not only shocked the entire archaeological community, but it also changed history forever.
Beneath several layers of earth, they found remnants of an ancient, wood-burning hearth. But how could this be? According to researchers, it would’ve been impossible for humans to dig their way through the glacial ice to get to the soil below.
As they continued digging, researchers unearthed additional artifacts, including tools and weapons. This discovery stumped the team as the Heiltsuk people traditionally didn’t use tools of this kind.
The Heiltsuk people had derived their food source from fishing and smoking salmon, utilizing small, precise tools to harvest the fish. The tools and weapons found were much larger and likely would’ve been used to hunt large sea mammals, such as seals, sea lions, and walruses.
What’s more, the team also uncovered shards of obsidian, a glass-like rock only found in areas of heavy volcanic activity. This discovery also puzzled the archaeologists, as there were no known volcanoes near that part of British Columbia. So, how did this rock — and these people — get there?
The historians deduced that whoever left these artifacts must have traversed the land bridge that existed between Siberia and Alaska during prehistoric times. Yet researchers still needed cold-hard facts…
Luckily, a closer inspection of the hearth revealed ancient charcoal remains, which the archaeologists quickly brought to the lab for carbon dating. When they received the results, the researchers couldn’t believe their eyes: everything they knew was a lie.
According to the carbon dating report, these bits of charcoal were an astonishing 14,000 years old, making them the oldest carbon remains ever to be discovered in North America.
Even by global standards, this was an extraordinary find. After all, these simple pieces of charcoal were older than the Great Pyramid of Giza and even predated the invention of the wheel! But that’s not the most remarkable fact about this discovery.
The 14,000-year-old discovery placed the earliest Heiltsuk at Triquet Island 2,000 years before the end of the ice age. Therefore, the island couldn’t have been covered by the massive continental glacier. And that’s not all.
Since Triquet Island was surrounded on all sides by water, the early Heiltsuk would’ve used boats to traverse the open waters. Boats, however, were not believed to have been invented until centuries later.
This meant that the Heiltsuk settled the area 2,000 years before initially believed. If this was the case, then these early men likely crossed paths with some of history’s most formidable beasts.
As the Heiltsuk people made their way south from the land bridge, they likely had to fend off giant creatures like mastodons, woolly mammoths, and giant sloths. But somehow, these humans survived, and it’s likely for one crucial reason.
Thanks to the Pacific Ocean itself, the sea level at Triquet Island remained constant for over 15,000 years. So as the sea gradually eroded the surrounding islands, the great beasts of the Pacific Northwest were kept at bay, leaving the Heiltsuk to a peaceful, secluded existence.
The most astounding realization that’s come to light is the fact that the Heiltsuk people were able to preserve their history orally for nearly 14,000 years. However, they are still being deprived of their history’s legitimacy.
When the media caught wind of the story, they seemed to focus more on what the discovery meant for the scientific community rather than acknowledge the rich history of the Heiltsuk. To many, the media’s portrayal of the nation was seen as highly disrespectful.
As a result, University of Victoria student Alisha Gauvreau — who was present during the excavation — has dedicated herself to shifting the focus of the dialogue toward the Heiltsuk people.
The Heiltsuk claim to Triquet Island stands as one of the oldest land-ownership claims in the world. Not only does this discovery speak volumes about the strength of the Heiltsuk people, but it also represents the indomitable spirit of mankind.
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