Month: May 2018

It was a map of the world, dated to AD 1440, showing an island called Vinland, identified as part of the Northeast American coastline. In other words, it was the earliest map to show America.

When Yale University unveiled the Vinland Map on October 11, 1965, at a black-tie affair in New Haven, CT, it upended what Americans had believed and been taught for centuries — that Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover the New World in 1492. The Vinland Map, dated by Yale researchers to about 1440, ignited a firestorm of debate about the moment of first contact — could it be that Vikings reached North American shores as early as the year 1000?

Many scholars, historians and much of the general public were swayed by the map and the study behind it, believing that Vikings had in fact been the first Europeans. Part of this acceptance was likely due to the findings of Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, husband and wife explorers and archeologists who discovered a Norse settlement on the Newfoundland coast that dates to the year 1000.

The Ingstads used what is known as the Vinland Sagas — Norse oral histories that detail Viking explorers traveling to Iceland, Greenland and even farther west and south — as the basis for their search. Starting in 1961, they uncovered Viking artifacts dating to the year 1000 near a small town called L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Their discoveries were made public in 1964.

In Science, Myth, & Mystery: The Vinland Map Saga exhibition that opened May 19 at Mystic Seaport Museum, the visitor is transported back in time to that October day in 1965 when the map is unveiled. The exhibition lays out the journey of the map itself, all the science that went into testing it to determine its age and validity, and the context of the times around its discovery and unveiling.

The Ingstads’ work cannot be underestimated in its importance. In Helge Ingstad’s 2001 obituary in The New York Times, William W. Fitzhugh, the curator of an exhibition last year at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington and the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, is quoted as saying the Ingstads’ work ”proved that Norsemen, Vikings if you will, were actually in America 500 years before Columbus.”

Inside the Vinland Map exhibition, visitors will see a 9-foot by 4 1/2-foot scale model of the Norse fishing village unearthed by the Ingstads. Created by the same team that maintains and works on the Museum’s Mystic River Scale Model, the model shows Vikings living a coastal life around the year 1000.

The model is built to an HO Scale of 1:87, according to project leader Tim Straw. The team was commissioned in January to create the model. Typically in addition to their work on the Mystic River Scale Model, they do one or two other projects for the Museum each year. Most recently they built the model Umiak boat that was part of the SeaChange exhibition last year.

A museum in Newfoundland has a similar model, and so the team received numerous photos of that model to use as the basis for theirs. Birgitta Wallace, the retired archaeologist for Parks Canada managed the excavations after the Ingstads left the area, and advised the exhibition opening here at the Museum.

The base is made of dense foam and wood, which is cut to a rough shape to follow the topographical map of the area where the village had been. It is then refined with chisels and files, and painted. Grass is created by spreading thinned white glue and then sprinkling turf mix. The model portrays what life would be like in mid-summer for the villagers. The winters were hard (and all white, not very interesting for a model).

The team of six volunteers is responsible for all work on the Mystic River Scale Model including construction of buildings, wagons and buggies, and maintenance of groundwork. The work on the Vinland model was split among the volunteers. Straw, a retired US Navy sonar engineer, did the design work and made the base. Anny Payne spent many hours applying and detailing the groundwork covering the entire model. Cindy Crab and Payne made all the outbuildings. Nick Dombrowski — whose hobby is restoring canoes and kayaks — made all the boats and oars. Rob Groves, a tugboat captain, made all the people look like Vikings. Dave Olsen helps out where ever he is needed, which is everywhere and often.

The finished product is incredibly realistic. Straw noted that the timeline for this model was tight, but they made it with time to spare. Now they are back to their regular schedule working on the Mystic River Scale Model.

By Göran R. Buckhorn

What do the Minnesota Vikings, the comic Hägar the Horrible, and Nordic soccer fans have in common? If your answer is “horned helmets,” you’re correct. So did the old Vikings from present-day Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland really have horns on their helmets? Answer: Never!

In the 1840s, a mass emigration to the United States started from European countries, especially from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany. Among the Nordic countries, Norway and Sweden also saw many of their citizens leaving for America for what they hoped would be a better life. Finns and Danes followed in the 1880s. Many Scandinavians settled in the eastern Mid-west, where the land of Minnesota was good and cheap for the European immigrants.

During a time of Romantic nationalism in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the Norsemen received a revival. The German composer Richard Wagner was strongly influenced by Norse mythology, which can clearly be seen in his Des Ring des Nibelungen, a cycle of four epic music dramas. The Ring is based on characters from the Norse sagas and Nibelungenlied, which is an epic German poem from around 1200. The first performance of The Ring opened in 1876 with costumes designed by Carl Emil Doepler, who was a German costume designer, painter, and illustrator. He had designed winged helmets for the characters in Wagner’s opera series. Some years later, Doepler published a book on Germanic gods and heroes, now also with horns on their helmets. The horned Viking helmet was born.

Fast forwarding seven decades, in 1951, American short-story writer and novelist Edison Marshall published The Viking, which in 1958 was turned into a swaggering, star-studded film, The Vikings [sic], with Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, and Ernest Borgnine. Among other places, the movie was filmed on a Norwegian fjord. To form two crews of rowing Vikings for the film, 125 top Nordic oarsmen from rowing clubs were gathered: 60 Norwegians, 64 Danes, and one Swede – the latter was this article writer’s rowing coach. No helmets with horns were used in this movie!

In 1954, the Swedish author Frans G. Bengtsson’s two-volume novel The Long Ships was translated into English (published in Sweden in 1941 and 1945). The novel became an instant success and neither the Swedish nor English editions have ever been out of print. Jumping on the success, a film with the same name as the novel was made in 1964, staring Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, and Russ Tamblyn. It has to be mentioned that this Anglo-Yugoslav film is very loosely based on the great novel by Bengtsson. In short, the film is terrible.

With a new Viking revitalization, it was not strange that in September 1960, a professional football team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took the name Minnesota Vikings to recognize the rich Scandinavian-American culture in the state. Already from the start, the Vikings’ logo was the profile of a blond Norseman with a helmet with horns, which was designed by Karl Hubenthal, a cartoonist at the Los Angeles Examiner.

Two years later, the fictional superhero Thor, based on the Asgardian god of thunder, appeared in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby, Thor looked like he had just stepped out of Doepler’s sketch pad, a giant of a man, or god, carrying his mighty hammer Mjolnir and with a winged helmet on his head. In the enormous popular 2010s Thor movies by Marvel Comics, the superhero can, at times, be seen wearing a helmet, not with wings or horns, but with some odd-looking metal pieces sticking up like a large, double-sided cell phone attached to his headgear.

In 1973, a new character in a comic strip saw the light of day, Hägar the Horrible, created by Dik Browne, and later continued by Browne’s son, Chris. Hägar, often also Hagar, is a red-haired, overweight, scruffy-looking Norwegian Viking with a horned helmet. As a matter of fact, Hägar’s whole family, including a dog and a duck, are wearing horns on their helmets, except his sweet daughter, who is dressed as a young Valkyrie with a winged helmet. According to numbers from 2010, the Hägar comic strip is published in 1,900 newspapers in 56 countries.

So, how about the Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic soccer supporters, why are they wearing Viking helmets with horns? First of all, coming from the countries of the Vikings, the fans should know better. Are the helmets making them look fierce or even berserk-like in the eyes of their opponents? No, not really. Google “Swedish soccer fans” on the internet and the images you get are of people with happy, blue-and-yellow-painted faces – and horned helmets. Could it be that the only Viking helmets that are around to purchase in toy stores and souvenir shops in the Nordic countries are helmets with horns? It is very likely…

Going back to the Viking age: wouldn’t it be terribly impractical for Viking warriors to wear helmets with horns or wings in a battle? Wouldn’t it be easy for an opponent to knock off the helmet by hitting the horns sticking up? And walking on the deck of a longship, wouldn’t the horns on the helmet rip the sail?

There are no sources suggesting that Viking had horns on their helmets. Yale professor Anders Winroth rejects the Viking horned helmets in his fascinating book The Age of the Vikings (2014). If you are visiting one of the two latest installed exhibitions at Mystic Seaport Museum, The Vikings Begin: Treasures from Uppsala University, Sweden, which opened on May 19, among the beautiful helmets from the 7th century, not a single one has horns. That should tell you something.

Göran R Buckhorn is editor of Mystic Seaport Museum Magazine.

Mystic Seaport Museum has been named the recipient of a 2018 National Maritime Heritage Grant. The $103,703 award will fund the survey and documentation of the fishing schooner L.A. Dunton in preparation for restoration at the Museum’s Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard.

Built in 1921 in Essex, Mass., the 123-foot-long Dunton is one of the last surviving examples of the Grand Banks fishing schooners, once one of New England’s most common fishing vessels in the beginning of the twentieth century. The Dunton was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994.

“We are very grateful to be the recipient of this grant to support our continued stewardship of the L.A. Dunton, which provides an irreplaceable connection to the fishing history of New England,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum. “The funding will enable us to move ahead with critical infrastructure improvements and necessary documentation.”

The Dunton was acquired by Mystic Seaport Museum in 1963. Since that time the vessel underwent several restorations, the most significant in 1973-1977 when the vessel received new topside framing, planking, and deck. The below deck spaces were restored to the original fisherman configuration. Bottom portions of her hull have never received comprehensive restoration. The planned work will address the vessel’s bottom, topsides, deck, and rigging to maintain her historic and structural integrity.

This planning grant will address steps required in advance of the restoration including upgrades to the Museum’s shiplift; a complete structural survey of the vessel to determine materials needed, work flow, and staffing; and documentation of the Dunton’s current condition using modern laser-scanning technology. The documentation work will allow the Museum to record the vessel’s present shape and detail, and recreate her original form and structural integrity.

About the Maritime Heritage Grants

The award is part of $2.6 million in maritime heritage grants given out by the National Park Service to assist funding 34 preservation and education projects in 14 states and the Northern Mariana Islands. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD), the National Park Service awarded grants for projects that teach about and preserve sites and objects related to our nation’s maritime history.

“From exploration, to industry, and military conflict, these grant projects tell the story of our nation’s history through a maritime lens,” National Park Service Deputy Director Dan Smith said in a press release. “Through a collaborative effort, the National Park Service is dedicated to conserving these treasures and enhancing public awareness of our maritime heritage.”

“Since 2014, MARAD has provided more than $7 million in funding to support our nation’s maritime heritage projects,” added Maritime Administrator Mark H. Buzby. “These ships, lighthouses and other strategic maritime vessels have played an integral role in our nation’s success at sea. By preserving these maritime artifacts, we hope to inspire future generations with America’s maritime legacy.”

The National Maritime Heritage Program Grant awards are made possible through a partnership between the two federal agencies, which both share a commitment to maritime heritage preservation and education. They are funded through recycling of vessels from the MARAD’s National Defense Reserve Fleet. The grant program supports a broad range of maritime education and preservation projects, without expending tax dollars, while ensuring that the vessels are dismantled in an environmentally sound manner.

Other organizations receiving grants include the USS Constitution Museum, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, New York’s South Street Seaport Museum, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, and the Maritime Museum Association of San Diego.

For a complete list of grant recipients, please view the National Park Service press release.

This year the Treworgy Planetarium introduced a new class, “Introduction to Coastal Weather,” taught by Lt. Walter O’Donnell, a former navigation instructor for the U.S. Navy. We met Walt during classes and shows we hosted for sailors. The class, held in the early spring, was so popular that we have scheduled a second one for June (sign up here).

We asked Walt to take a few minutes and answer five questions so we could get to know him a little better.

1. Tell us a little about yourself, your career and educational background (including where you grew up and where you live now).
I was born in Boston and raised in Massachusetts. My parents took us sailing when we were young, and my grandfather always had a couple of boats that he kept at his house in Sag Harbor, N.Y. I have been sailing ever since, mostly coastal waters. I attended Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and graduated with a B.A. in History. I joined the U.S. Navy in 2011, and in six years, I lived in Newport, R.I., Norfolk, VA, San Diego, CA, and finally Newport, again. I was assigned to a 9,000-ton, 505-foot guided missile destroyer (DDG) in Norfolk, and deployed to the Mediterranean Sea. In San Diego, I was assigned as Navigator on a 25,000-ton, 685-foot amphibious landing platform dock (LPD), and we took her through the Pacific and Indian oceans to the Gulf of Aden in the Middle East for my second deployment. I spent my last two years in the Navy training future Navigators at Surface Warfare Officer School in Newport, specializing in weather and celestial navigation. I am currently attending Fairfield University in Fairfield, CT, pursuing my Master of Arts in Teaching for Secondary Education, Social Studies, and plan on being a high school history teacher. I live with my wife and 1-year-old daughter in Milford, CT.

2. How did you become interested in weather?
Weather is an inescapable part of going to sea, and I was always intrigued by how powerful Mother Nature can be. I had to brief my ship’s commanding officer every day on the weather forecast while in the Navy, so there was a necessity to becoming an expert on weather. I also love historical fiction, especially the “Master and Commander” series, and those books helped me appreciate how much a “weather eye” is the mark of a mariner. What really sealed the deal for me was when we were transiting across the Indian Ocean and encountered 20-foot waves and 60 knots of wind. I would never underestimate the importance of weather knowledge after those few days of pitching, rolling and yawing aboard a massive Naval ship.

3. Do you have a favorite kind of weather?
I would have to say relatively heavy weather. Ten to 12-foot seas, 30 knots of wind could rock my Navy ships pretty well, but we could handle it. There is a peace to trusting your equipment, because there is no way to “outrun” the storm at that point. And if I have done my job well up until then, then we knew that this weather was headed our way. After all, “a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

4. What do you think are the most important aspects of weather that laypeople should understand?

How to “read” Mother Nature’s signs about what is headed your way when you’re already out on the water. Reading a weather forecast is pretty straightforward, but if you’re already sailing around on Long Island Sound, then you have to keep an eye to windward. If you understand how the barometer works, and combine it with a basic understanding of cloud types, you can keep yourself and your boat safe. We spend a good portion of the class going over these visual cues because they are so important to safe boating.

5. What’s the best part about teaching a class such as this?
Probably at the end of the class when we listen to the NOAA weather forecast on the VHF radio. At the start of class, many participants could not understand some parts of this vital report on what their current local weather is and what it will be. But at the end of class, they understand what every prediction means, and how it will affect their next trip out on the bay. Now they’ll have more fun out on the water because they have peace of mind about the weather!

Bonus: What is your favorite song, book and movie that involves weather?
Favorite song about weather would be “What Fortunes Guide a Sailor” by Matthew Byrne; it’s a great folk song about a long voyage.
Favorite book would be “Tying Down the Wind” by Eric Pinder because it makes weather fun, not too scientific.
Favorite movie is definitely “The Perfect Storm” because my grandparents lived in Gloucester, MA, the quintessential sailor’s town where the Andrea Gail came from, so we spent a lot of time up there.