The coast of distant Labrador barely makes itself visible across the Strait of Belle Isle and between the icebergs. In June, the snow still lies in patches on the slatey rocks. Waves splash, the sun shines. I am part of it.
I spent yesterday wandering amongst the excavated remains of L'Anse-aux-Meadows and reading everything I could find - the Groenlinga Saga and Eirik's Saga and The Norse in America by the discoverer of L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Helge Ingstad. Who knows, perhaps there were even a few Norse Greenlanders cutting trees in the forests of Labrador as Cabot made landfall a couple of days south of here in the New Found Lande. It was cold yesterday, bitterly so with the howling wind. It seems very likely that this is indeed the Leifsbrüðr of the sagas, everything fits so well. Vìnland - "vìn" meaning meadows, not "vin" which means wine. Ingstad's idea that the Western Settlement from Greenland emigrated here in the mid-14th century seems to be at least possible and is utterly intriguing. Where would they have settled exactly? How many were there, probably no more than 150-200? Where are their remains? Where is Thorvald's grave and Keelness?
At the B-and-B, Thelma, like other locals, pronouces "th" and "r" in the Irish manner, drops any "h"s at the start of words and calls everyone "dear", often. She says "goodday" as a standard greeting and uses the third person singular conjugation for all cases - "I takes", "they takes". And months are referred to as "in May month", "in September month". During the spring, polar bears come over on the ice from Labrador - there were 35 this year, including one around this house. Thelma's husband remembers when the Ingstads first came here. As a boy, they had all thought the mounds were Indian - there are other Indian sites nearby. He has often fished over along the Labrador coast:
"I've been as far as 36 hours in a boat down North. I mean, up north ... or however you say it."
A road here was first built in the 1970s, there is a road being built along Québec's Basse Côte Nord or Lower North Shore and along the Labrador coast - the end of an era.
Thelma's husband dropped me off back on the main road to catch the bus to St. Barbe and the ferry to Labrador. "Da time'd not be long goin'", he said as we set off, which I think meant he felt we needed to get a move on.
