The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2000, Side 23

Vol. 55 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
321
Iceland’s Strategic Role in North-
Atlantic Security
by Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson
Ambassador of Iceland to the United States and Canada
It is perhaps not entirely a coincidence
that Iceland has been chosen as “The Most
Honoured Nation” during the 47th
International Azalea festival in the year 2000.
Why? Because this year my countrymen and
people of Nordic descent in N-America are
celebrating the historical fact that a thousand
years have passed since the Icelandic naviga-
tor and explorer, Leif Eirfksson, reached these
shores, the first European to be known for
sure to have done so. The Vinland Sagas,
being a part of the medieval saga-literature,
written in Icelandic in the 12th and 13th cen-
turies, recount the story. Those ancient manu-
scripts have been preserved to this day. They
tell the story of how Leif “the Lucky” and his
crew explored and gave names to three areas
in N-America: Flatstoneland, (now Baffin
Island); Markland (now Labrador); and
Vinland the Good, which most scholars
nowadays agree to have been where now is
Quebec.
According to the sagas, Icelanders from
their settlement in Greenland, made several
such expeditions to North America in the 11th
century. The last expedition may have been as
late as the 15th century.
The Vinland Saga
The third expedition in the early 11th
century was actually co-led by a lady:
Gudn'Our Eorbjarnardottir. She is believed to
have reached farthest to the south of the
American mainland. Some scholars believe
that she was actually the first European lady
of Manhattan for a while. She also has the dis-
tinction to have been the mother of the first
American of European descent, whose name
was Snorri Eorfinnsson. This lady is in all
probability the most widely traveled lady in
medieval history. Later in her life she spent a
few years on a pilgrimage in Rome. Only last
year, the famous Norwegian explorer, Thor
Heyerdahl, of Kontiki fame, discovered docu-
ments in the Vatican archives with records
based on conversations with this lady, dating
from the 11th century. This remarkable lady
could tell the learned scholars of the Vatican,
from her own personal experience, of the new
lands in the west, where she had herself been
living for some time.
As a matter of fact there was nothing hap-
pening in Europe, or for that matter in the rest
of the world, around the year 1000, which was
equally significant as this discovery. Because
it simply changed the medieval view of the
world. Why is it then, that these historical
events have gone mostly unnoticed in the
annals of American history and the historical
consciousness of the American people? There
are several reasons: One is that the Icelandic
settlement in the New World was not a per-
manent one. Another is that without hardcore
archeological evidence to support the saga
tales of discovery, many scholars tended to
disbelieve them as legends or fairytales.
But since the early 1960s the Vinland
Sagas could no longer be discounted as unre-
liable. In 1961 the Norwegian couple Helge
and Anne-Stine Ingstad made an archeologi-
cal discovery at L’Anse Aux Meadows in
Newfoundland. Carbon-dating confirmed that
these were the remnants of a Nordic settle-
ment from a thousand years ago. They had
found the winter headquarters used for the
Icelandic expeditions from Greenland to
America. In recognition of this fact Lyndon
B. Johnson became the first president to
declare October 9 as Leif Eiriksson day. More
than 15 million Americans of Nordic descent
celebrate this day every year since.
The oldest relationship
What is the significance of all this? Well,
it so happens that I need no longer ask you to
take my word for it. Because the day after
tomorrow, April 27, the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C. will formally