Travelrific® Travel Journal

North America’s Only Viking Settlement

January 23, 2014 8:00 am

By Linda Tancs

Five centuries before Columbus, the Vikings’ trek westward toward North America is recounted in their ancient sagas. Settling in what is now known as L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, their colony was excavated in the 1960s by an international team of archaeologists from Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and the United States. A National Historic Site of Canada, this 11th century Norse settlement is the first and only known site established by the Norse in North America.