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These are the recreated sod huts of Leif Erikson who landed at L'Anse
aux Meadows around a thousand years ago, nearly 500 years before Columbus
found the New World. Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stein found the
evidence for this being a Viking settlement in the 1960s, and one of
the primary pieces of evidence was the remains of an iron furnace where
bog iron was processed. It's estimated that about 2 - 3 kg of iron
was refined there which seems like a lot of effort for so little.
The Vikings called this place Vinland after the grapes they found.
They say grapes never grew in Newfoundland, but the bakeapples, and
partridge berries, and blueberries grow wild everywhere there and
would make a fine wine for the Vikings who had likely never seen
grapes growing anywhere they had lived. The name L'Anse aux Meadows
comes from the French where it was originally L'Anse aux Medeuse, or
Jellyfish Cove, but meadows does seem to apply here too.
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