A Guide-Book to Norumbega and Vineland by Elizabeth G. Shepard

Far from presenting stereotyped images of simple-minded and brutal Norse warriors, this historical work offers a new and foreign approach of Thorfinn Karselfni’ story and the two Sagas of the Icelanders mentioning him, the Grœnlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða. Amidst the various motifs extracted from our History and used by Japanese authors, one has caught our attention: the Vikings and their expedition to Vinland, in Yukimura Makoto’s manga Vinland Saga. Japanese popular literature participates in this movement, assimilating and reorganizing European cultural elements, before sending back to us those same fragments, deformed and/or revitalised. It has started to be filled with European images from the past, whether it is in the medieval-fantasy backgrounds of video games or in highly praised literary works.

Contemporary popular culture is an important vector to convey them, even on the other side of the Earth, where European’s past can become the future inspiration for foreign writers and artists. This thesis argues that the Vinland-Mi´kma´ki Trail will provide visitors to Atlantic Canada with an exceptional and inspiring experience, taking them on a journey of exploration and imagination, combining Native American and Viking history and heritage with French Acadian, Celtic, and modern-day Canadian cuisine and culture.ĭue to unprecedented opportunities of global and cultural exchanges in the past decades, fragments of our past go beyond borders, nationalities and cultural differences. The idea with the Vinland-Mi´kma´ki Trail is to strengthen the existing tourism products in Atlantic Canada including the Viking Trail in Newfoundland and the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia. The thesis further proposes a new Vinland-Mi'kma'ki Trail that would connect the various Vinland Saga sites with historical and mythological Mi´kmaq sites in Atlantic Canada. This thesis investigates the potential location of the places in the Sagas and argues that the Vinland of Leif Eiriksson was practically the same area as Mi´kma´ki, the ancestral land of the Mi´kmaq people. The Sagas include descriptions of places, wildlife and indigenous peoples in the Vinland region.

The stories of the Norse (Viking) explorations to North America are preserved in two ancient Icelandic Sagas, “The Saga of the Greenlanders” and “The Saga of Eirik the Red”. He named the land Vinland (Land of Vine). Lawrence and found a land rich in resources, including wild grapes. In around 1000AD the Norse (Viking) explorer Leif Eiriksson sailed into the Gulf of St.

A Guide-Book to Norumbega and Vineland by Elizabeth G. Shepard