Historic Sites

2010.08.26

In the morning we went to the Port au Choix National Historic Site. The site has a museum as well as archeological sites where migrations of different cultures to the area can be seen.

The oldest were the Maritime Archaic Indians who came from Asia to North America over the Bering Strait over 12,000 years ago. They reached Labrador about 9,000 years ago and Newfoundland about 5,500 years ago. They disappeared about 3,200 years ago.

Next were the Groswater Palaeoeskimos, who were arctic-adapted and came across the Bering Strait 5,000 to 4,000 years ago. While some remained in Alaska, others reached Greenland 3,800 years ago and Newfoundland 2,800 years ago. They were replaced by the Dorset Palaeoeskimos, who lived in larger communities, 1,900 years ago. The Dorsets left about 1,200 years ago. The Port au Choix site has had the largest and richest Dorset archeological site.

Sometime between 2,000 and 800 years ago the Recent Indians appeared. They were different in that they lived in smaller family groups, were nomadic and harvested not only the sea and coastal areas as their predecessors had, but also went inland to harvest the wildlife there. These people were known as Beothuk by the Europeans who lastly showed up. Contact with the Europeans, in a variety of ways, wiped out the Beothuk.

Port au Choix is on the French Shore which by the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht allowed the French to fish and process the fish on shore but not to settle it. This treaty gave the British sovereignty over Newfoundland.

We drove North towards St. Anthony, NL and the L'Anse aux Meadows (the Meadows part of the name not being French) Historical Site. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is here that around the year 1000 AD the Vikings for a decade or two had a settlement. They came from a colony they had established in Greenland.

While the archaeologic site has been re-buried, there are nearby reconstructed sod buildings with period re-enactors to show how they lived. What surprised me most was they smelted local iron ore to make iron nails.

The Vikings, despite being much more advanced technically, were far outnumbered by the hostile stone age natives and had to abandon the settlement.

We stayed at the Viking RV Park in Quirpon, NL.

Odometer reads 68,079.