Customer Reviews

Westviking

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Canadian author Farley Mowat is perhaps the best-equipped person alive today (1998) to take a look at the remote history of the Norse voyages to North America. Combining the skills of seamanship, navigation and amateur anthropology with those of the historian and trained scientist (he is a biologist), this unique writer has brought a very fine light to bear in this 1965 work which is just as relevant today as it was over 30 years ago.

Amongst the more remarkable attributes of this lengthy examination of the old Icelandic and Norwegian sagas, is the locating of the probable sites for the major voyages of Eric the Red and Leif Ericsson and the well-argued contention that neither of them was the first man to make a documented voyage to the New World. According to Mowat, that honour goes to the little-known Norwegian trader, Barnji Herjolfsson, who probably gave Eric the Red his sailing directions.

Mowat doesn't take kindly to many other conceptions about this period of Norse history and spends considerable time debunking what he believes are myths created by scholars who had no first-hand knowledge of either sailing or the particular coastlines (Greenland, Newfoundland and Labrador) involved in the sagas. Indeed, his close examination of the available descriptions serves to point very much to the real sites as they might have been and show that many of the old theories (particularly to do with New England) have no value at all.

Sailing enthusiasts who love to read will come readily aboard this vessel and perhaps pitch their own knowledge against or alongside Mowat and the various Newfoundland schooner captains whom he interviewed to find out their opinions about prevailing winds and currents. All in all, it's a delightful book, not too difficult to read, even for non-nautical types (Mowat chose to create quite a number of appendixes to hold all the very detailed information and make the main text easier to read - they work very well) and anyone even remotely interested in finding out who, as far as we know, actually did discover America (or thinks they may have had Viking ancestors), should pick this up. As an added bonus, if you enjoy this book, there are several more by Mowat on the same theme, and dozens more by him on a wide range of associated subjects (the Arctic, the environment, sailing, whales etc.).

Westviking is what I beleive to be the Best historical account of Pre Columbian exploration of North America. Farley Mowat takes accounts from ancient Norse, Native American & Inuvut (Eskimo) & brings them together for the first time in a creative and suspensful reading. Westviking is a must for fans of history, socialogy, or geneology. I give five out five stars.