The Farfarers Read online

  The Farfarers

  A New History of North America

  Farley Mowat

  Dedication:

  For Vilhjalmur Stefansson,

  Thomas Lee, and

  Thomas Lethbridge,

  who lighted me on my way

  Copyright © 2002 by Farley Mowat

  First published in English by Key Porter Books Limited, Toronto, Canada, 2002 Published by Skyhorse Publishing, United States, 2011

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  9781616082376

  Printed in Canada

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  FARFARERS TIMELINE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  WHY AND WHEREFORES

  CHAPTER ONE - BEGINNINGS

  PART ONE - THE OLD WORLD

  CHAPTER TWO - FARFARER

  CHAPTER THREE - TUSKERS

  CHAPTER FOUR - PYTHEAS

  CHAPTER FIVE - ALBANS AND CELTS

  CHAPTER SIX - ARMORICA

  CHAPTER SEVEN - WAR IN THE NORTH

  CHAPTER EIGHT - PICTLANDIA

  CHAPTER NINE - FETLAR

  CHAPTER TEN - ALBA REBORN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - SONS OF DEATH

  CHAPTER TWELVE - FURY OF THE NORTHMEN

  PART TWO - WORLDS TO THE WEST

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - TILLI

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - SANCTUARY

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - ARCTIC ELDORADO

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - TUNIT

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - THE WESTERN GROUNDS

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - WESTVIKING

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - LAND TAKING

  CHAPTER TWENTY - CRONA

  CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE - UNGAVA

  CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO - OKAK

  PART THREE - ALBAIN-THE- WEST

  CHAPTER TWENTY - THREE - THE GREAT ISLAND

  CHAPTER TWENTY - FOUR - A NEW JERUSALEM

  CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE - ERIK RAUDA

  CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX - ARI GOES TO ALBANIA

  CHAPTER TWENTY - SEVEN - ALBA - IN - THE - WEST

  CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT - SEARCHING FOR ALBA

  CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE - KARLSEFNI AND COMPANY

  CHAPTER THIRTY - THE BEST OF TIMES

  CHAPTER THIRTY - ONE - DROGIO AND ESTOTILAND

  CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO - GREENLANDERS

  CHAPTER THIRTY - THREE - JAKATAR

  CHAPTER THIRTY - FOUR - THE COUNTRY PATH

  POSTSCRIPT

  NOTES

  INDEX

  FARFARERS TIMELINE

  BC

  c. 5000 A warming climate following the retreat of glaciation brings the first human occupants to the Northern Islands of Shetland, Orkney and the Hebrides.

  c. 4000 Having mastered the arts of making and sailing skin boats, the Northern Islanders become distant seafarers.

  c. 3000 Similar megalithic structures, such as standing stones and henges, appear in Mediterranean and Northern Island cultures.

  c. 2000 The climate continues to improve, allowing natives of arctic Canada to colonize northeastern Greenland.

  1500-1200 Migrant Indo-European tribes, including forebears of the Celts, enter Europe from Asia.

  c. 1000 A severe climatic deterioration forces high arctic dwellers south. Forebears of Beothuks and Tunit are living in Newfoundland.

  c. 700 Inhabitants of Britain move from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

  c. 500 Climatic conditions in Greenland become so severe that natives abandon it.

  c. 330 Pytheas voyages from the Mediterranean to Britain, traveling as far north as Orkney and Thule (Iceland), which receive their first mention in British history.

  400-300 The Belgae, a Celtic tribe, cross the channel and invade southern Alba (England).

  c. 250 Celts occupy most of the lowland country of England and Ireland.

  c. 150 The Celtic invasion of Alba is halted by indigenes at the line at Solway Firth-River Tweed. Alba continues to exist north of this line.

  51-50 Picts and other Armoricans flee western Gaul and seek refuge in Alba (Scotland).

  c. 40 Apparent outbreak of war between the Picts and their Alban hosts.

  c. 1 Armoricans control the lowlands of Scotland north to the Great Glen. Albans retain the mainland and the islands to the north of the Glen.

  AD

  43 The Claudian invasion of Britain begins.

  71 The Solway-River Tyne line has become the de facto frontier between Roman Britain and the “Barbarians to the north.”

  79 Agricola attacks northward into Pictland.

  85 The Romans begin withdrawing from northern Scotland, after a naval visit to Orkney.

  100-200 The Picts are continuously engaged with Roman Britain. Alba north of the Great Glen is relatively untroubled.

  363 Theodosius takes a Roman naval expedition north, at least to Orkney and probably to Tilli (Iceland).

  400-450 After raiding deep into Britain, the Picts come under sustained assault from Roman-Celts, Saxons, Angles and Irish.

  500 The North Atlantic climate becomes sunnier and drier, encouraging distant navigation. The priest Brendan sails from Ireland to the Faeroes, probably to Iceland, and possibly to within sight of Greenland.

  550-600 Pictland, beleagured on the south and west. The Northern Islands are raided by the Irish and Saxons. Picts and Albans join forces and the old kingdom of Alba in Scotland is reborn.

  650-700 The Norse acquire their first truly seaworthy vessels and begin venturing westward. They reach Shetland and Orkney where trading soon changes to raiding.

  711 Defeated in the south by Saxons and Angles and harrassed on the west by the Irish, Alba abandons the Northern Isles to the Vikings.

  729 Oengus, King of Alba, tries to recover Shetland and Orkney, but his fleet is destroyed.

  The Norse overwhelm the islands and the inhabitants flee west to Tilli where crofts had been established previously.

  850 The Norse control most of northern Britain and Ireland. Albans have settled along the coasts of Iceland and are visiting Greeland. Contemporary church documents refer to Christian establishments in Iceland and Greenland.

  c. 850 A Viking named Naddod sails to Iceland, probably on a raiding venture.

  c. 850-890 Further Viking visits to Iceland culminate in Norse occupation of the island.

  900 By this time Alban walrus hunters appear to have rounded southern Greenland, gone north to the head of Baffin Bay, and reached Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay to the westward.

  981-985 Outlawed from Iceland for three years, Erik the Red sails to Greenland. In 985 he leads a fleet there and colonizes the southern Greenland fiords.

  985 Icelandic merchant mariner Bjarni Herjolfsson is storm-driven to the east coast of Newfoundland.

  996 Leif Eriksson sails with Bjarni on a voyage to Newfoundland.

  1004-1007 The Thorfinn Karsefni, Ic
elandic/Greenlandic expedition to Labrador and Greenland.

  1025 Icelander Gudlief Gudlaugson lands in Newfoundland, where he encounters people possessing horses.

  1059 A Saxon or Celtic priest travels from Greenland to Vinland (Newfoundland).

  1112-1118 Bishop Eric Gnupsson makes a prolonged visit to the Vinland region.

  1200-1300 The Norse settlement in south Greenland becomes virtually a theocracy, while the northern one drifts toward paganism.

  c. 1285 Norse adventurers enter Hudson Strait.

  1347 A Norse ship sails from Greenland to Labrador, thence to Iceland.

  c. 1350 An expedition from south Greenland claims to have found the northern settlement abandoned to Skraelings (Thule-culture Inuit).

  1380-1400 The period of the Zeno voyages to Labrador, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

  1418 Southern Norse settlements in Greenland are attacked and seriously disrupted, evidently by people from the northern settlement.

  c. 1450 The first Basque whalers may have reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

  1497 John Cabot lands on southwestern Newfoundland.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I AM GRATEFUL TO MANY NORTHERN ARCHAEOLOGISTS, but especially to Drs. William Fitzhugh, Elmer Harp, Jane Sproull Thomson, William Taylor, Robert McGhee, Maxwell Moreau, Callum Thomson, and Peter Schledermann. They provided me with invaluable information, encouragement, and advice (not all of which was heeded).

  Many others gave a helping hand, including Alistair Goodlad of Shetland, John Mowat of Orkney, Alexander Mowat of Caithness, Calum Ferguson of Lewis, Dr. Njordur Njardvik of Iceland, Joseba Zulaika of the Basque Provinces, and Canadians Matthew Swan, Leonard Muise, Dr. Ian Macdonald, Robert E. Lee, Robert Rutherford, and Ginevra Wells. My thanks also to my indefatigable assistant, Mary Elliott, and my wife, Claire, who graciously hosted Alban ghosts for three decades.

  WHY AND WHEREFORES

  SOME FORTY YEARS AGO I BEGAN INVESTIGATING pre-Columbian European voyages to Canada. By 1965 I thought I had got it about right so I published Westviking—The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America.1

  I went on to pursue other interests, write other books; but during the time I worked on Westviking, a worm of unease had entered my subconscious. Beginning as a minute suspicion, it grew to a conviction that the Norse were not, after all, the first Europeans to cross the Western Ocean.

  They had been preceded—of that I became certain—but by whom? Orthodox histories provided only the vaguest, most ephemeral hints as to a possible identity. At best, any putative forerunners appeared as insubstantial wraiths; at worst, as mere figments of the imagination.

  I tried to exorcise them, but they refused to go away. The worm of doubt metamorphosed into an implacable presence that nagged until I capitulated and began what turned out to be a thirty-year quest for a people who had disappeared from recorded time.

  During those three decades the wraiths never left me alone for long. They led as far afield as Asia Minor, northern Britain, Iceland, Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, Labrador, and, finally, to Newfoundland.

  We may never know what these forgotten folk called themselves but since they appear to have been known to their contemporaries as Albans, this is the name I give them.

  Insofar as these things can be determined, the origins, ancestry, and history of the Albans unfold in the ensuing pages. However, since they were illiterate (we do not even know what language they spoke), and got only peripheral mention in the records kept by others, immense lacunae exist.

  Rather than let these voids remain empty I have filled some of them with vignettes which, I believe, come as close to the realities as one can reasonably expect. These are set in special type so as to be easily recognizable.

  Inevitably I have had to engage in a good deal of supposition unconfirmed by archaeological or documentary evidence. If I have trespassed against the usages of professional historians, I have tried to do so in such a fashion as to mislead no one.

  A footnote in Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire can serve me as well as it did him: “I owe it to myself and to historic truth to declare that some circumstances in [what follows] are founded only on conjecture and analogy. The stubbornness of our language has sometimes forced me to deviate from the conditional into the indicative mood.”

  The plain fact is that my book makes no pretence at being history in the academic sense. It is the story of a vanished people: their successes, failures, and ultimate fate. I believe it to be a true story.

  Because, in my view, footnotes tend to interfere with effective story telling, I have placed all elucidations, validations, and explanations at the end of the book, where they can be found by any who care to seek them out.

  FARLEY MOWAT

  River Bourgeois, Nova Scotia

  1998

  CHAPTER ONE

  BEGINNINGS

  I SPENT MOST OF THE SUMMER OF 1966 VISITING native communities across the Canadian Arctic from the north tip of Labrador to the Alaskan border. My purpose was twofold: to gather material for a book, and to record interviews for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Northern Service.1

  I travelled in a single-engined Otter float plane, a heavy-paunched beast with the plodding pace of a plough horse and the voice of an outraged dragon. But she was reliable. She carried the pilot, an engineer, and me into and out of any number of unlikely places. When the weather was too bad to fly, her cabin provided us with a dry floor upon which to unroll our sleeping bags, and a place to dine, quite literally by candlelight, on such delicacies as boiled caribou tongues and sun-dried Arctic char.

  My original plan had been to visit only Inuit and Indian communities, but on August 11 I made a departure from the schedule.

  Several years earlier, while deep in research for Westviking, I learned that William Taylor, an archaeologist employed by the National Museum of Canada, had made a remarkable discovery on Pamiok Island at the mouth of the Payne River, which drains into the west side of Ungava Bay.2 Local Inuit had led Taylor to what he described as: “a huge rectangular structure measuring 85 feet long by 20 wide.... The walls, which were collapsed, were made of stone.”

  Taylor had time for only a hurried look at this imposing structure, which was quite unlike anything previously reported from the Arctic. Reasonably enough, neither he nor any other specialist cared to hazard an opinion as to its provenance until it had been properly excavated.

  A puzzle to archaeologists, this stone foundation was discovered by Dr. Robert McGhee on the coast of Prince Albert Sound in the Canadian Arctic. See also plan of site on page 141.

  If and when. By 1965 most of a decade had slipped away without the National Museum having evidenced any further interest in the Pamiok Island conundrum, the solution to which might, I hoped, shed light on Norse ventures to the Canadian Arctic. When I asked a friend at the museum the reason for the institution’s lack of interest, he replied that certain quarters felt it could turn out to be archaeologically embarrassing, so had decided to leave it alone.

  A short time before setting off on my 1966 Arctic journey I heard that Thomas Lee, an archaeologist from Quebec’s Laval University, planned to conduct a dig at Pamiok that summer. Although Westviking had already been published, I decided, time and weather permitting, to visit Pamiok.

  On August 10 we were at the Inuit village of Povungnituk on the east coast of Hudson Bay, about as close to Pamiok Island as we were likely to get. I decided to try for it on the morrow.

  The eleventh broke overcast and threatening; nevertheless, an hour after dawn, the Otter was in the air labouring eastward across the 250-mile-wide waist of the Ungava Peninsula.

  We were buffeted by a strong headwind that held us to what seemed not much better than a fast gallop. A monochromatic panorama of water, rock, and treeless tundra slowly unrolled beneath our wings. To counter the effect of the gale, the pilot flew so low that we several times sent herds of caribou streaming away from us as if we were
a gigantic hawk and they a mob of mice.

  From the midway point at Payne Lake we thundered down the valley of the Payne River at “deck level” until we came to a broad stretch about ten miles from its mouth. As driving rain and mist threatened to obscure everything, we made a hurried splashdown in front of a small Hudson’s Bay Company trading post.

  There was no hope of flying on to Pamiok in such foul weather, so I arranged with Zachareesi, a local Inuk, to take me the rest of the way in his outboard-powered canoe.

  The tidal range on the west Ungava coast is of the order of thirty feet, and the tide was falling fast as we set out into a confusion of channels and islets. The post manager, a young fellow from Orkney, warned me of the necessity of getting clear of the estuary before we became marooned in a morass of mud and broken rocks from which there would be no escape until the rise of the next tide.

  The murk became thicker as Zachareesi fishtailed his canoe through a swirling maelstrom of currents pouring past, and over, unseen rocks. He was “smelling his way” towards the northern headland of the estuary.

  Suddenly he shouted and pointed to the left. Wavering in the gloom was a dim shape. The fog swirled away, revealing a stone tower nearly twice the height of a man. Smiling broadly, Zachareesi announced we had reached Tuvalik Point at the mouth of the river and were free of the tormented waters of the estuary.

  We went ashore for a smoke. I examined the structure with great interest, and some affection, for it had served us well. It was constructed of flat stones carefully fitted together without mortar to form a cylinder nearly five feet in diameter. It had evidently once stood twelve or more feet high, but had lost a number of upper-level stones, which were scattered around the tower’s base. Notably, the undersides of these fallen stones lacked the thick, crusty coating of age-old lichens which clothed the undisturbed surface of the tower.