CBC The Nature of Things - The Norse An Arctic Mystery (2015)

The Norse: An Arctic Mystery

Buried under the tundra on a windy cape of Baffin Island lies one of the most important archeological finds in Canada. An untrained eye would miss it—but not scientist Pat Sutherland. Her new work here at the place they call Nanook will likely change history.

Dr. Sutherland has been working on the archeology of the Arctic for more than 30 years. Her expertise is the ancient native people who lived there. But along the way she started finding artifacts that didn't fit—pieces that weren't made by indigenous hands, but by Norse traders, possibly as far back as a thousand years ago.

Is it possible that someone was here from the other side of the Atlantic, centuries before the arrival of Columbus or Cabot? Is it possible that this is the site of first contact between native North Americans and Europeans?

The Norse: An Arctic Mystery follows Sutherland from the south shore Baffin Island to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, the departure point for Norse sailing west, searching for trade goods like ivory and furs across the North Atlantic to Canada. In Denmark a crew of latter-day Vikings lifts the sails on a reproduction of an ocean-going ship. And in Ottawa Sutherland gets down to the hard science—using state of the art technology to unlock the hardest kept secrets of Norse arrival on Baffin Island.

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