A Viking Voyage: Retracing Leif Erikkson's Journey in an Authentic Viking Knarr - Softcover

Carter, W. Hodding

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091879167 ISBN 13: 9780091879167

Publisher: Ebury Press, 2001

Synopsis

W. Hodding Carter cannot sail, hates to be cold and panics when he's lost. Why then did he devote three years of his life to dodging polar bears and icebergs on an open-decked wooden ship resembling an oversized canoe? Because he had always wanted to be a Viking. Obsessed with Lief the Lucky since he was a child he decided to recreate the Viking's voyage from Greenland to North America in a replica square-rigged knarr. He recruited a rag tag crew, some of whom could sail, most of whom could not. Some of whom liked each other, some of whom, it became clear, did not.By turns thrilling and slapstick, sublime and outrageo us, A Viking Voyage is an unforgettable adventure story that will take you to the heart of the most magnificent, unspoiled territory on Earth. It is a celebration of the people that Carter visits and a mesmirising story of friendship and teamwork. And of accomplishing a goal that once seemed impossible.

About this title

Review:

In the year 1000, the Viking Leif Eriksson sailed from Greenland to a place the Vikings called Vinland, somewhere on the northeast coast of America. Nearly a thousand years later, in 1995, the American adventurer W Hodding Carter became obsessed with Eriksson's voyage, asking himself, "Why not retrace the Viking voyages to the New World?"

Over the next three years Hodding Carter set about retracing Eriksson's voyage from Greenland to L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland, believed by many to be the location of the legendary Vinland. However, there were a few obstacles, such as the author's lack of money, crew and expertise--he concedes from the outset, "I knew nothing about sailing. I had not even read a single Patrick O'Brian novel." A Viking Voyage records his extraordinary and often foolhardy adventures as he builds a Viking cargo ship, or "knarr", called Snorri, hires a crew of eight men and eventually sets sail on one of the greatest, but also hazardous voyages of ancient times. The naivety of Hodding Carter's dream as opposed to its often reckless reality is unwittingly amusing and incongruous, as the crew sit around in full Viking regalia sending and reading e-mails, and experiencing both the terror and the wonder of close calls with both icebergs and hungry polar bears as the Snorri battles its way to Vinland. In retracing the Viking voyage, the author concludes that "we did not find a new continent, a new passageway, or even a new way to use the bathroom in an open boat, but we did discover what it felt like to sail into the wind, heading straight for an iceberg, albeit unknowingly". Even Lief Eriksson would have been impressed. --Jerry Brotton

Book Description:

Bill Bryson meets Thor Heyerdahl in this sublmime & comedic real-life arctic adventure.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ebury Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0091879167
• ISBN 13: 9780091879167
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304