By Betty Gordon
© 2024 text. All rights reserved.
“A Viking Voyage: In Which an Unlikely Crew of Adventurers Attempts an Epic Journey to the New World” by W. Hodding Carter (Ballentine Books, 305 pages, 2000)
The genesis of this harebrained idea had all the hallmarks of a drunken bar bet (or boast): Sail a replica of a Viking ship following a historical route from Greenland to the east coast of Canada — more or less.
In reality, there was no pub involved, no alcohol overload and no money wagered. Instead, author W. Hodding Carter confesses that outlandish schemes would often randomly pop into his head, some of them so intriguing that they deserved real-time consideration, and maybe even execution.
Which is how “A Viking Voyage” began to take shape, set to loosely coincide with the millennial anniversary of Leif Eriksson’s journey to North America, landing in what he called Vinland, which may have included present-day Labrador, Newfoundland and possibly New England (experts’ theories vary).
Never mind that Carter had minimal sailing experience, an unrealistically short on-ship itinerary of six weeks, a laughably underfunded budget of about $30,000, and little hint of a vessel or crew.
“I have an unyielding need to walk in much bigger shoes than my own,” he writes. “I crave to see just how brave, stoic, undaunted, or even insane our historical figures were. … I put myself in [a] situation, get in way over my head, and then attempt to survive.”
Some would call this experiential journalism. Others would call it a death wish, especially considering the distance to be sailed over open sea. Then again, in a granddaddy of replica voyages, Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and five other men sailed a balsa wood raft 4,300 miles from Peru to the Polynesian island of Tuamotu in 1947 as they proved that contact between ancient peoples of South America and Pacific inhabitants was possible.
With a bit more research revving up the possibility of actually making this trip, and with an eye on authenticity, Carter decided that the ship would be a newly constructed knarr (pronounced KAH-nahr), a merchant ship that the Vikings used on long voyages. When compared to the vaunted longship, the knarr is shorter, wider and deeper — for more cargo — and would require a smaller crew, possibly as few as six, to man the square sail and oars.
Viking trade goods included wool, fur and pelts, timber, wheat, armor and weapons, and slaves. They often carried livestock such as sheep and horses, especially when establishing a new settlement was the goal. And, of course, they had to lay in supplies and enough food and drink to get them to their destination.
In Viking times, southern Scandinavia was a go-to source for oak, a main timber used in building a knarr. Its construction included overlapping planks from the hull up, secured by iron rivets, ensuring the strength needed to withstand rough seas. Generally, they were at least 35 feet long and could carry up to 60,000 pounds of cargo.
So, not exactly the type of craft a modern shipbuilder has a lot of experience with, especially an American one (Carter considered, then dismissed the notion of having it built in England for $200,000).
After this estimate, the scope and seriousness deepened, which Carter recounts with lively and humorous anecdotes: The Viking Project picked up Lands’ End (the clothing company) as a major sponsor — ramping up publicity, a website and magazine articles — and the budget grew to $500,000.
Carter found a boatbuilder, Lance Lee, with his own shipbuilding school in rural Maine. They never achieved a meeting of the minds, so Carter moved on to a Lee graduate, Rob Stevens, from Hermit Island, Maine. He had long dreamed of building a Viking ship, and also agreed to join the crew.
Carter contacted and visited the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, where the remains of five Viking ships had been excavated from a fjord in the 1960s, hoping that experts would provide guidance for his project. Carter writes that museum staff were not particularly enthused or supportive, and he discovered that calls and letters about building replicas was not as rare as he had imagined.
“We do not want people to build these boats,” Max Vinner, then the director of the museum, told Carter. “Not because we want a monopoly but because we cannot have people building them and then dying. We will be sued and the government will want to shut down all wooden open-boat building and sailing.”
I visited the museum in October 2000. Roskilde’s cathedral and a summer music festival were the town’s biggest draws before the ships were discovered. (It’s less than 30 minutes by train west from Copenhagen.) I watched a film about the excavation and the long and complicated process of preserving the wood and then the jigsaw-puzzle-like attempts to reconstruct the various pieces into ship shape, eventually supported by metal frames for display. (The rock-filled ships were originally sunk on purpose in the 11th century, as a defensive measure to keep marauders from sailing up a channel and reaching shore.)
All five ships are incomplete, some more so than others, and all have had life-size replicas built at the museum.
Up to this point, the size of a knarr was based on speculation. Finding the first remains, which became known as Skuldelev 1, allowed historians to draw supportable conclusions. This ship was about 52 feet in length, about 16 feet wide, and thought to be constructed in western Norway in the 11th century from pine, oak and lime. It may have had two to four oars and a crew of six to eight.
Back in Maine, Stevens set a seven-month timetable for 10 full-time employees (and lot of helpers) to complete the knarr — based on architectural plans from Roskilde — with an eye on a late April 1997 launch. Meanwhile, Carter was assembling a crew of 12 that included a lawyer, a drummer, a photographer, a “hippie-ish” wilderness instructor, a former Coast Guard navigator, a former fishing boat captain from Greenland, an 18-year-old who had been sailing since he was a child and, as captain, a former Peace Corps volunteer who had sailed across the Atlantic twice. (Yes, the inevitable personality clashes happened.)
Finally in the water, Snorri — named for the first European child born in North America, according to “The Greenlanders Saga” — was put through its paces. All was not smooth sailing, as a wonky rudder design and an inability to maintain a straight course were among the issues. And there were 110 nautical miles from Maine to Boston to be conquered before Snorri could be loaded onto a container ship for the crossing to southern Greenland.
Not surprisingly, problems continued, leading to repeated setbacks. This was key: Summer is brief at best in Greenland and far northern Canada. By the time they finally quit hugging the coast of Greenland and headed for the Davis Strait’s open water in mid August, fog, rain, wind, near-freezing temperatures and choppy water made absolutely everything that much more difficult. Carter had insisted there be no cabin for on-board shelter, because the Norse knarrs didn’t have them. He did come to his senses about allowing some life-saving electronic equipment such as a GPS and a computer.
Morale rose and plummeted. Seasickness plagued some crew. Fear was undeniable. When the rudder snapped, this folly was mercifully over. Coast Guard Canada rescued the crew and Snorri was towed back to Greenland.
Despite all this, a crew of nine (some from the original) signed on for a second attempt the next year. Snorri underwent some refitting, overall preparation was suitably more professional, and Carter finally grew into owning his leadership.
If you want to remain in suspense about the outcome of the second voyage, skip the map at the beginning of the book. And I won’t divulge whether they made it to the New World, either.
(Though this is nowhere mentioned in the book, Carter is the son of W. Hodding Carter III, who served in President Jimmy Carter’s administration, and died last May at age 88 [the Carter families were not related]. The Carters’ journalistic roots reach back to a line of Mississippi newspapermen, and include a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the civil rights movement.)
Quick reference: For information about the five Viking ships in Denmark, their full-scale replicas constructed onsite, plans to build a new museum in Roskilde, and far more, see the Viking Ship Museum website: www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/
Snorri resides in a boat shed at Norstead Viking Village at L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada. “Norstead replicates a Viking port of trade as it may have looked during the Viking era (AD 790-1066),” according to its website. For the 2024 season: 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily, June 3-Sept. 14. http://www.norstead.com
For more on Hodding Carter: www.hoddingcarter.com
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