L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site

More than a thousand years ago, Norse expeditions sailed from Greenland to the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula and built a small camp of timber-and-sod buildings. Their landing at L’Anse aux Meadows is the first known evidence of European presence and settlement in North America. The ruins were discovered in 1960 by noted Norwegian archeologists Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad, who followed Viking sagas recorded in medieval Icelandic manuscripts. Later excavation of the site revealed the remains of eight buildings and hundreds of iron, bronze and bone artefacts. Today, costumed interpreters are on-site to lead tours of the recreated base camp and give visitors a taste of the Viking life.