News of Norway, issue 1, 2000
'100 years is nothing,' the great Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad told his honorable guests, who included H.M. King Harald V of Norway. Ingstad is too preoccupied with the future to worry about the past. On his birthday, the press waited while Ingstad finished an application to the Norwegian Nonfiction Writers Guild. 'You have always been a role model to the youth,' Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik told Ingstad on December 30, his 100th birthday.
From Levanger to the Artic
After leaving behind his law practice in Levanger, over 70 years ago, Ingstad made his way into the Canadian Arctic interior where he spent the winter with a fellow trapper in a log cabin they built themselves. The experience resulted in the writing of his first book, The Land of Feast and Famine (Pelsjegerliv), originally published in Norwegian in 1931 and released in English two years later. Suddenly, solicitor Ingstad had become a famous author.
Discovering Vinland
Ingstad's greatest achievement was discovering Vinland (Land of Wine), described in the ancient sagas, on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Basing his explorations on a radical theory, Ingstad found the proverbial 'needle in the haystack' - the ancient Viking settlement L'Anse aux Meadows built around AD 1000. With several archaeologists, in particular his wife Anne Stine, Ingstad spent eight seasons unearthing eight turf-walled houses, a soapstone spindle whorl, and a piece of jewelry. The result of Ingstad's finds: no less than a rewriting of North American history. Finally there was proof that Leif Eiriksson and his Viking crew had arrived in North America almost 500 years before Columbus. L'Anse aux Meadows is now included on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
Since Ingstad's groundbreaking discovery of Vinland, he has been awarded five honorary doctorates from universities in Canada, the United States, and Norway, is a Commander of the Royal Order of St Olav, and was most recently distinguished with the Royal Geographical Society Patron's Medal.
Dangerous life
The 1944 Nobel prize winner in literature, Johannes V. Jensen, compared Ingstad to another Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, writing: 'What has this Norwegian and previous lawyer not seen! Under which stars has he not lit his evening fire, smoked his pipe, and crept into his sleeping bag.'
Ingstad admired both Nansen and Roald Amundsen, but never shared their desire to conquer the poles.
'I would rather explore the unknowns of Indian and Eskimo cultures as well as nature,' he recently told Norwegian daily Aftenposten. And he never missed his law practice.
'I never missed it at all. When I was sitting there, on the tip of Snowdrift with my canoe, my rifle, my sleigh and my dog team, by the Arctic Ocean, with the woods and the never-ending wilderness, I felt like a millionaire. The pleasure of my freedom filled me completely.'
The trapper life Ingstad lived was one of danger and harsh reality. In his books, he recounts many close calls of his own as well as the fates of those far less fortunate. But he also tells stories of heart-warming experiences with his native companions and fellow trappers in the Northwest Territories in the last days of the fur-trading era. After being out-of-print in English for more than forty years, The Land of Feast and Famine is once again available (McGill Queens University Press).
Extensive writings
In 1932, Ingstad was appointed district governor of Eirik Raude's Land (Eirik the Red's Land) on East Greenland, an employment he later held on Svalbard as well. Ingstad has written two well-known books on these periods: East of the Great Glacier (Øst for den Store Bre) (Gyldendal, 1935) and The Land of the Cold Coasts (Landet med de Kalde Kyster) (Gyldendal, 1948).
The latter required extensive research into historic material dating back to the AC 1000s, the time of the Viking sagas, giving Ingstad a great understanding of the spirit and skill of the early explorers. His book The Land Under the Leidar Star: A visit to the Norse villages of Greenland (Landet Under Leidarstjernen: En ferd til Grønlands Norrøne bygder) (Gyldendal, 1959), co-written by his wife, sought to describe how these Viking settlements were built and how they mysteriously perished 500 years ago.
Rebel
Ingstad is still very active in Norwegian environmental debates.
'A lot of our fine nature is being ruined for economic profit,' Ingstad declared to the Norwegian press on his birthday. It is somewhat ironic that the man who has probably killed more wolves than any other Norwegian is now worried about the species' extinction. Ingstad still regrets the harming of the Alta watercourse. 'Alta was a catastrophe. You can't just let 'big money' loose on our nature,' says Ingstad, who still has the voice of a true rebel. 'Those who have the money build horrendous cabins in our beautiful countryside!'
FACTS/Vinland
The Vinland Sagas describe the expeditions to Markland (Land of Woods) and Vinland (Land of Wine). Vinland was described as a mild bright land rich in resources, well suited for fishing and hunting, and filled with excellent lumber as well as with abundant wild grapes for producing wine. But the land was already inhabited. Leif Eiriksson's brother, Thorvald, died in a clash with the Aboriginal inhabitants. The Vikings retreated home, and Vinland was abandoned.
The exhibition 'Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga' brings to light the viking settlements in Greenland and L'Anse aux Meadows. It will be on display from April through September at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. (more details in News of Norway's 5/99 issue, at www.norway.org)