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00:04The thing you find is always in the last place you look, right?
00:07Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's that?
00:09Is that 1144?
00:10It's easy to miss these carvings.
00:13The ridge of the nose and the mouth.
00:16Yeah, I found it in a farm field and it dates to 1320.
00:19Found it in the center of Manitoba.
00:21This is epic.
00:22Oh, look at that.
00:23Oh, a piece of iron.
00:24Oh, wait a minute.
00:25Wait a minute.
00:27That was the moment where I really thought that I might have actually gotten eaten by
00:29a polar bear.
00:30The Beringon grizzlies, I mean, they're pretty big customers.
00:33There are glacial scratches on the backside of it.
00:36You can't fake this.
00:44Good to be with you.
00:54Let's see.
01:14The thing you find is always in the last place you look, right?
01:17With the help of a local guide, Joe and David track down the location of a storied rock with writing
01:24on it.
01:25I make a trench sort of up the last slope that we're going to try, because we're done.
01:29And I'm just shoveling a little bit.
01:30David comes over and we're shoveling.
01:32I said, David, this is exactly the kind of face that you said you'd carve into if you were here.
01:37And bingo.
01:39Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
01:40What's that?
01:40We see one number.
01:43Is that 1144?
01:46That's kind of, that can't be, that's got to be a 1944.
01:51Even though it wasn't white man's writing on a rock, they were encouraged and continue looking.
02:05We were approximately here looking for a white man's writing on a rock and had a, you know, fair bit
02:10of success today after digging a lot.
02:13Found some inscriptions, not the right ones.
02:16But maybe it's on a face that we're going to have to revisit.
02:20There's just too much snow, like three feet of snow, right?
02:24The things we found in Barron's River, the initials, absolutely not what we were looking for.
02:31But what was interesting is we almost didn't find them.
02:34They're not what we were looking for, but it showed us that it's easy to miss these carvings.
02:41It's the last night in Barron's River for the team.
02:45Joe and David dissect what went right and what could be done better in the next trip.
02:50Once home, they will scout new locations and gear, as well as look through local stories for to decide what
02:58to pursue next.
03:05Before heading home, the team meets with William from nearby Bloodvane River First Nation.
03:11He knows of something in the woods that will interest the crew.
03:16One of the things that's happened over the 10 years is people find out we're looking for something and they
03:22start telling us about stuff they've seen.
03:25Then the discussion is, what is it?
03:27So a lot of these things we haven't got to go see.
03:31The stones at Bloodvane, we came across because a person in Barron's River said, hey, I know somebody who found
03:39something.
03:39That word of mouth is exactly how they found Lazabeto.
03:43Hey, go look over there.
03:44So we had to go look.
03:46We'll just go up this rock here.
03:48This way?
03:48Yeah, this clearing.
03:49Okay.
03:50Just to respect the site, what should we do?
03:52We'll follow your lead.
03:53What I will do is I will put the back one in front.
03:57That's just basically it.
03:59Joe and David defer to William's experience and reverence for the natural area they are imposing on.
04:06In order to gain access to this sacred site, you must have permission and be accompanied by a member of
04:12the community.
04:14I overdressed.
04:16We'll follow you.
04:18We'll let you break trail too.
04:20Let me break trail.
04:23The youngest guy first.
04:25Yeah.
04:25Sure.
04:26Okay, we're going to take a bit of shoveling all the way from here, all the way this way.
04:31So what are we looking for here?
04:33You don't see it?
04:34No.
04:35Wow.
04:39Yeah.
04:40A lot of people don't see it.
04:44So this particular rock faces south.
04:49And in the southern area is the white shell area.
04:52Yep.
04:53Home of the, you know, the petroforms, the pictographs and where the creator sits.
04:59Manitouabe.
04:59This rock and others in the area are significant to the people and history of Bloodvein First Nation.
05:09Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of sites down there.
05:11A lot of history.
05:12And then a lot of stuff.
05:13It's actually why we're interested in petroglyphs and rock stuff rather than painting.
05:18Because painting, well documented, well researched.
05:22But there aren't a lot of stone carvings or petroglyphs in the area.
05:28They're, because, like, your ancestors didn't have chisels that didn't chisel, but they were very good painters.
05:34So they made a lot of pigments and colors to paint with.
05:38Well, I wouldn't know about chisels.
05:39How did they come up with this?
05:41Well, that's why we're interested.
05:42Yeah, it's like, huh, that's interesting.
05:44I'm going to go stand back and take a look here.
05:46We're really interested in stone carvings because it's one of the known things Scandinavians and Greenlanders and Icelanders did to
05:54mark stuff.
05:56And stone carvings aren't normally found in the prairies.
06:02The indigenous cultures did a lot of rock painting, but not stone carvings.
06:09This is the eyebrows right here.
06:12The rigid nose and the mouth.
06:17Mother nature always plays a role, so you've got to respect that.
06:22But it is, it's a facial feature.
06:27How it came to be, I have no idea.
06:30So I'll explain here after I've made my offering of tobacco to this rock.
06:42The Anishinaabeg people communicate with water spirits at specific sites by producing an offering as a sign of respect or
06:51a request for help with hunting or travel.
06:55Our natural tobacco grows out here in the forest, it's made of red willow.
07:03It's a connect, connect, connect, connect, right?
07:05Yeah.
07:06Tobacco is a strong medicine that can heal if you believe in it, if you're in your culture.
07:14And the offering to the sites where you visit is a good respect to the natural sites that you find
07:25in our forests.
07:28So I'm placing this tobacco down for this rock.
07:36We met William, told us about the site, the rock face site, plowed in through some three-foot snow.
07:44We got way more snow than I thought.
07:45Good thing we had the Sherp.
07:46A lot of history in the area, but another lead, another mystery.
07:53Back at the family cabin in Chalet Beach, Joe, David and Mackenzie study maps and discuss what's next.
08:02This brings up a previous trip when the team took a boat up north to try and reach Hudson's Bay.
08:09The most disastrous excursion that we have gone on, I would say, is Uncle Joe and Dad had a good
08:16idea of taking a whaling boat down the Nelson River to York Factory.
08:21It's a bit of a grunt to get from the end of the Hudson Bay to Lake Winnipeg.
08:26Once you get to Lake Winnipeg, you pretty much can go anywhere in the continent.
08:30So we got basically to the mouth of the Hudson Bay, decided that we couldn't make it around, tied up
08:36to this island, I guess, that had been man-made and abandoned years ago.
08:42And it turned out we had landed essentially on a polar bear's front step.
08:46And when the tide went down, our boat went sideways.
08:49The polar bear came around the corner swimming.
08:52We were surprised.
08:53And I think that was the moment where I really thought that I might have actually gotten eaten by a
08:58polar bear.
08:58In Hudson Bay, we experienced a lot of polar bears.
09:02In the area we are, the polar bear population is very healthy.
09:06And they don't want to eat you because they're fat, dumb, and happy eating seals.
09:12They won't bug you if you don't bug them or surprise them.
09:16But again, if they are hungry, they will eat you.
09:19You just do not want to get close without being prepared.
09:25So we spotted him, oh, 150 yards away.
09:29When he turned, you can see he's got a gigantic hump signature of grizzly bears.
09:34The bear and ground grizzlies, I mean, they're pretty big customers.
09:37And grizzlies are a little bit more unpredictable.
09:40Been here for three days.
09:42Now we've generated enough cooking smells and garbage that the local bear, proprietor of the establishment here, has come to
09:51see who's in his cabin.
09:54Number one thing is, if it's a bear and ground grizzly, if he's coming to investigate, he's coming to investigate.
10:00Everybody's got whistles.
10:02And we'll have some bear spray.
10:04And we have some non-lethals with us.
10:06And we have lethals.
10:07I don't think we're going to get into a situation where we're going to have to shoot anything.
10:11But now that this guy's around, we can't wander around by ourselves all that easily.
10:16Even go into the bathroom.
10:17Take a can of bear spray with you.
10:19Try and go with someone all the time, because then people can look around.
10:23Because there's so many willows here.
10:24Unfortunately, he could be having a nap on the side of the trail.
10:28Overnight, you go down, you have a pee, you're having a pee, you're looking around at the moon or something,
10:32and all of a sudden, he's right there.
10:40You remember when we went to Gillum?
10:42Yep.
10:42All the way down here.
10:43We overnighted here with the polar bear.
10:45The boat we took was like the Royal Navy whale boat, like 28 feet long, and a nine horse.
10:50So we did some calculations and figured out that sort of six or four to six Norse rowers, you know.
10:56Could they make it there?
10:58Specifically, could they make it this way, because you're upstream?
11:01Right.
11:01We proved, or at least showed, that it's possible to come up here.
11:09Showing that the Vikings could have completed this journey with the equipment they had 1,000 years ago,
11:15narrows down locations the team could search for artifacts, or tie to existing artifacts.
11:22It's possible they could have done this, but we've got some indications all along the way now that they might
11:28have done that.
11:29In the period of 500 years and nobody came, the Scandinavians, the Vikings, had ships that could go down rivers
11:35very easily.
11:36They already knew how to get to North America, because they were here in 1,000 A.D. on the
11:40East Coast.
11:40And if you look at how easy it is to coast crawl all the way into the continent, they had
11:48centuries to make it to Hudson Bay.
11:50Do you know what a York boat looks like?
11:53You know the boats that the bird traders use all the way down?
11:57Oh, yeah, okay.
11:57Those are basically Viking ships.
12:00Yeah.
12:00From York Factory, that's what they call York Boats.
12:02The York Boat was named after York Factory, a key spot for trading posts along the Hudson Bay.
12:08They were designed to transport goods through the unforgiving northern Canadian rivers.
12:14Designed by the Orkneys just out of the west line.
12:16And the Orkneys is basically the, you know, call them Vikings, but the Norse moving west.
12:24So a Viking ship and a York boat have the same pedigree, same style of sailing, same capability, can be
12:30rowed, can be sailed.
12:32And if you see pictures of them on Lake Winnipeg, you'd swear it was a Viking ship.
12:40David and Mackenzie visit the Canadian Geographical Society in Ottawa, while Joe is going to a field in southern Manitoba
12:49to work on his metal detecting skills with Randy Guerrillo, that might come in handy if they find the ancient
12:56cairn.
12:57We're at Fort Dufferin, just north of the American border, by about a mile.
13:02Back in 1872, the British U.S. Boundary Commission established a spot here to continue the 49th parallel, to survey
13:12the 49th parallel.
13:13So it started here, and it was in a good spot because St. Joe's Trail and the Crow Wing Trail
13:18and the Red River.
13:20So it was sort of a confluence, it's sort of a meeting area, a good spot.
13:23I wondered often why it was here, but it was on the trade routes.
13:29Among Fort Dufferin's many historical roles over the years, it served as a post for the Northwest Mounted Police, as
13:37well as an immigration station for the southern border of Manitoba.
13:42Randy has found many treasures here over the years, and thinks it will be a good place for Joe to
13:47train.
14:15Randy's metal detecting skills and equipment.
14:18equipment are second to none.
14:20Joe is happy Randy is on the team and helping ahead of their upcoming trip to Minnesota.
14:26There, they hope to investigate other artifacts that are claimed to be of Viking origin.
14:32We found Randy because we were looking for an expert in metal detecting.
14:37He turns out to be a very well-regarded, very experienced detectorist, is what they call him.
14:43So we said, hey, we need someone who knows how to do this well.
14:47In the Northern Expedition, we want to use metal detecting to see if there's artifacts in sites we want to
14:55search.
14:56Because very much like Lanzo Meadow, metal got dropped.
15:01And there shouldn't be a lot of dropped metal things in places we're going.
15:08How do you determine exactly where it is, where you have to dig?
15:12Well, that's just a pinpoint, so your pinpoint button is right here at the bottom.
15:15Okay.
15:15So you can just get the signal.
15:17You should get some signal here.
15:19Let me try it.
15:21I'm not getting anything.
15:30Each blip and beep from the metal detector is key to identifying what is underneath the soil.
15:39So, no?
15:40Yeah, I'll just use the pinpointer, Johan.
15:44Unless you can see it.
15:45There it is right there.
15:45Look at that.
15:48Know what that is?
15:50A little bullet?
15:51It's a .22.
15:5322, Sean.
15:55It's really exciting to find any artifacts that can be researched further, because there are so few artifacts.
16:02Up north, I don't expect to find a Viking village and go like, oh my gosh, look what we found.
16:08Finding even the boat rivet in Lanzo Meadow changed history.
16:13No, it's actually the bullet itself.
16:16Yep, yep.
16:17That's 22.
16:18That's pretty good.
16:19Yeah, that's a small piece.
16:21Look at that, eh?
16:22And that's what these detectors do.
16:24They find that small little items.
16:26That's been fired out onto this field here.
16:29It's hit something.
16:29You can see the end of it.
16:30So, it actually hit something and then dropped into the ground.
16:34Wow.
16:35That's pretty cool.
16:38Having found a needle in a haystack already, the two continue searching the area.
16:44Something big.
16:46Horseshoe.
16:46Can you hear it?
16:47Yeah, I hear it.
16:53Oh, yeah.
16:54There.
16:54Look at that.
16:56Well, that's significant.
16:59Oh, there's a stove part right there.
17:01Yeah, it's the little door on the front of the stove.
17:04Yeah, that's actually a kind of nice piece.
17:06Yeah, it is.
17:07Look at that.
17:08Yeah, it's got a little design on it.
17:09It's got a design on it.
17:10So, see the hinges?
17:11The latch?
17:13Yeah.
17:13It's in good...
17:14That's cool.
17:15Another discovery close by.
17:17This small metal door from a wood stove could have been resting and hiding here in the ground for more
17:24than 150 years.
17:27That is kind of interesting, yeah.
17:29Now, I'm surprised that's just pieces left over from the thing, but that's interesting because had that been an axe
17:36head, it didn't show up a whole lot more than some other scrap pieces that weren't very big.
17:42Right, but you were getting sort of a decent, there was still like a half and half kind of a
17:47sound that maybe it was a little bit bigger.
17:50Interesting to see who manufactured that, but that's sort of late 1800s, mid-1800s.
17:54Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:55Does this make me a professional yet or not?
17:57Well, not quite, right?
17:59Well, you've got a ways to go, but...
18:01You're too kind.
18:04Randy's metal detectors are sophisticated enough to not only locate an item, but to indicate a possible size and composition.
18:13So, how far can we detect something a reasonable size, like a coin or a button?
18:18A good setting, you can probably get it, probably maybe a coin, maybe about 10 inches.
18:22He previously used these complex tools to find something that could change the known history of North America.
18:32When he called me, I said, okay, well, I'll come down and I'm going to bring a coin with me
18:37that I found many years ago and I'll show it to Johan.
18:42So, that's when I just pulled out this.
18:46So, how many years ago did you find that?
18:48About 2017.
18:51So, I told Johan, I said, yeah, I found it in a farm field by Emerson.
18:55And it dates to 1320.
18:59The first time I saw that coin, he didn't know the story that we were following.
19:06He said, hey, these are things I have found before.
19:09And then he pulls out this penny and goes, and then I found this penny.
19:13And it's a 1320 penny.
19:15And it just about fell over.
19:16Because I'm going, what, did you just say 1320?
19:19This discovery is incredible.
19:21A coin potentially dropped 150 years before Columbus arrived in North America.
19:28How did it get there?
19:30This could be part of what helps support Joe and David's theory that Vikings traveled further inland than previously thought.
19:38Well, when I found it, I had no idea what it was.
19:40I usually have a Canadian or American silver coin.
19:44And all of a sudden, this pops up and the king is staring at me with the flowing hair.
19:50With the internet now, you can do a lot of research.
19:52And it probably took me a couple hours.
19:54And then I knew exactly, you know, the king, King Edward II, found out how old it was.
20:02That is the oldest English coin found in Canada.
20:05And it's on the route just before the day to the Kensington Rune Stone from where Hudson Bay would lead
20:13you down this river to Minnesota.
20:16That connection makes it kind of interesting.
20:19And we have to follow up on it.
20:21Most settlers are not going to have a 500-year-old coin in their pocket.
20:26That's like, why would you immigrate with that?
20:29This one's 1320. At the latest, 1325. Found in the center of Manitoba. This is epic.
20:37Many travelers and settlers would have passed through the area.
20:41It was a bit of a stopping point for immigrants coming in the late 1800s.
20:46A lot of people went through there.
20:47But in the late 1800s, this coin was already 400-plus years old.
20:53So, what could have been dropped by some of those folks? Maybe.
20:57It's, you know, there are many, many possibilities.
20:59It's not impossible to think that a Viking might have left this behind 700 years ago.
21:06Of course, I said, well, you know, we Norse, we like our beer.
21:11They're going by.
21:13Norse guy goes off the boat to have a pee.
21:17Falls out of his pocket.
21:18Ends up where you found it.
21:21It's just, it's certainly possible that that could have happened.
21:25Discoveries like this fuel Joe and David's expeditions to prove that Viking explorers were in North America long before any
21:34other Europeans.
21:36So, I think the route from England through the Scandinavian countries, Iceland, Greenland, here.
21:43I like that one.
21:43One significantly unique aspect of Randy's coin is that it was homemade, not pressed by a machine.
21:52It's sort of like a hand-forged tool versus a machine-made tool.
21:56The machine-made tool is precise.
21:59These may all show slight differences simply because they're handmade.
22:06Back in Fort Dufferin, Randy takes Joe through all the steps of finding that rare coin.
22:12When you found the coin here, it gave a distinctive chirp.
22:17You could tell it was something different.
22:18The way it read on the gauge, it was silver.
22:23It was going to be silver.
22:23It was going to be silver.
22:24Okay.
22:25So, you could tell from experience, right?
22:28Yeah.
22:28But when it came out of the ground, it was silver, but it wasn't Canadian or American.
22:34I knew exactly sort of that it was going to be a silver coin because it just sounded right.
22:39The numbers were up there.
22:40The sound was good.
22:41So, it was like, it could be American, Canadian coin, but from, you know, maybe from the 1870s, 1880s, like
22:47I usually find on there.
22:48But this was a little bit different when I first saw that, that the monarch, the king, looking at you
22:55with the flowing hair.
22:58That's like, that's like a wow moment, I guess.
23:02A lot of times it's not about the monetary thing.
23:04It's about the history.
23:05It's about, you know, something old.
23:09Randy had discovered the oldest coin ever found in Canada, dating back to the 14th century.
23:15The coin was later verified as originating in England, and to date, there hasn't been currency found in Canada that
23:23predates it.
23:27In Ottawa, David and Mackenzie meet with Rosemary Thompson of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
23:34Hello, hello.
23:35Come on in.
23:36Hi, how are you?
23:37Nice to see you.
23:37Yeah, Mackenzie.
23:38Oh, hi, Mackenzie and David.
23:40Good to see you again.
23:41The organisation was founded in 1929, with the goal of advocating a greater understanding and appreciation of Canada's geography.
23:52Mackenzie and David are members of the society, and are visiting today to utilise the stories and knowledge of other
23:59explorers on their upcoming Northern Expedition.
24:02Let's head upstairs.
24:03I'll show you the falls.
24:04It's really beautiful.
24:05Sounds good.
24:06Okay, good.
24:06And we're very lucky, because we look out onto the Rideau Falls.
24:10Oh, wow.
24:11They are really spectacular.
24:14To become a member or fellow in the RCGS is considered an honour and privilege.
24:20Once accepted, among other things, you must be an activist for the society's mission and volunteer your time.
24:27There are more than 1,500 fellows, including the entire Faraheim team.
24:34Just before the end of the tour, Rosemary shows David and Mackenzie something that she knows will spark their interest.
24:42This is a sled that was given to us.
24:44So this went across the Arctic, and it's from the 60s.
24:48So it's not that old.
24:49Wow.
24:50And look at the technology of the 60s versus today.
24:53And, of course, it's a dog sled.
24:55And you can see the old skis and, you know, the poles.
24:59And I love this, because if you take a look inside the box, you can see, you know, sort of
25:04some of the provisions.
25:05The Arctic display highlights the sacrifices that David and Mackenzie's predecessors would have made in the name of exploration.
25:13It's something that they won't take for granted in their own expeditions.
25:18A couple of the big artifacts that were there currently were the sled and then some of the inventory that
25:26some explorers went up with,
25:28like their coats and their goggles and their diaries.
25:35In the RCGS, there's a sled that was used on a high Arctic expedition.
25:39It's based on thousands of years of Inuit knowledge.
25:44And to get into the area where the cairn could be, even 70 years ago, you were using something based
25:52on that technology.
25:54I'm so glad we don't have to do that.
25:56Because with modern technology, our expedition into the low Arctic is via plane.
26:02And it would be a hard slog to do this expedition compared to even 70 years ago.
26:08Meanwhile, in Fort Dufferin, Joe is eager to find more artifacts with Randy.
26:14Okay, we're not stopping except for silver or gold now.
26:17Sounds good to me.
26:18No silver, no gold, no stopping.
26:20I'm stopping.
26:23Getting a 65 right in here.
26:26That's a big item?
26:27Yeah, 65.
26:28It's filling in the bottom.
26:32Yeah, let me have the shovel.
26:33I've only got two hands here.
26:34Yeah, let's go.
26:35Randy uses a pinpointer, which provides a precise location for buried metal objects.
26:41Over here?
26:42Yeah, close, real close.
26:44Oh, look at that.
26:48Oh, a piece of iron.
26:50It's a part of a chisel.
26:51Oh, wait a minute.
26:55What's that?
26:58That's a socket.
27:00Yeah, it's a tool.
27:02That's a tool.
27:03Oh, you know what?
27:03Joe goes in for a closer look at the object.
27:06What the hell could that be?
27:10Something was affixed to it with the wood handle, probably.
27:14If I was a real romantic, I would say that's a spear point.
27:17But it's a little premature to think that.
27:22It's laying on this side, maybe.
27:24Yeah, it could be.
27:24But, you know, there is a place for a shaft, a handle.
27:27Yeah.
27:28No telling how long.
27:29Yeah, it's socketed.
27:32We'll have to keep that XRF it, and then we can tell how old it is.
27:38Yeah.
27:39That's interesting right there.
27:41Yeah.
27:41That was worthwhile.
27:42Well, that's the difference between amateurs and professional metal detectionists.
27:47Didn't you find this one?
27:48I think you found something.
27:51Well, I get a long way to go to be anything but a rank amateur.
27:55But thanks for coming out and showing me how this works.
27:59That's kind of interesting, actually.
28:01Yeah.
28:02Interesting to see what that actually is.
28:03Looks like a keeper.
28:05Yeah, I would say so.
28:06It looks like a blade of some sort because it's flat on one side on the backside.
28:11Well, listen, hey, this is going to be cool.
28:12It's going to be interesting to see what that is.
28:14Great.
28:15The team's discoveries continue to support their theories of Vikings coming to North America's inland via Hudson Bay.
28:23The next trip is to Minnesota, where they intend on inspecting the Kensington runestone closely.
28:30The runestone is a large gray wacky stone slab found in the late 1800s near Alexandria, Minnesota.
28:37The runestone contains Norse writings and is dated 1362.
28:45The runestone is highly controversial.
28:49So Johan meets with Janie Weston, a rune expert, ahead of their Minnesota trip, to learn more about the Kensington
28:55runestone.
28:56So what first got you interested in runes?
28:58Taking a look at the Kensington runestone is what really got me started.
29:03Janie is an expert in calligraphy, languages, and stone carvings.
29:09She began studying the fabled Kensington runestone with her father, Robert, years ago.
29:15At that time, the museum board really wanted my input as a stone letter carver.
29:23My dad and I were asked to come and look at it, and we were provided with a very good
29:30portable microscope.
29:32We brought our own lenses, and it was out of the case.
29:36And we were given four and a half hours to look at it.
29:43Janie and her father were there to help determine the stone's authenticity.
29:49It weighs approximately 200 pounds.
29:52It's 30 inches high and 16 inches wide, and stored behind glass for safekeeping.
30:05The Norse characters inscribed on the stone suggest a Viking expedition in the area that went gravely wrong.
30:13Eight Geats and 22 Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland to the west.
30:18We had camped by two skerries one day's journey north from the stone.
30:22We were out to fish one day.
30:24After we came home, we found ten men, red of blood and dead.
30:28We have ten men by the sea to look after our ships.
30:31Fourteen days' travel from this island.
30:34Translated, it's thought that Vinland refers to the landing area on the east coast of North America.
30:42Geats were Swedish people, and skerries were small rocky islands.
30:46The AVM inscription likely refers to Ave Virgo Maria, which is a Latin prayer for protection from evil.
30:54And the ship's 14 days' travel from this island is potentially referencing a north point of Hudson's Bay.
31:07We didn't know Old Norse.
31:09We were not looking at it for the linguistics.
31:14But I was looking at it as a letter carver.
31:19Looking at it very close with the microscope,
31:22I could see that whoever carved it must have been swearing up a storm
31:29because the first word on the second line popped off.
31:34That's what happened.
31:35One thing I noticed when my dad and I were looking at it,
31:38on the top edge of it, there is a distinct chisel mark hit right here.
31:48Ah.
31:49At the same depth as the step down from this surface to this surface.
31:57That distance is where a chisel was placed on the top, back from the surface.
32:05Every time a line of writing went across this spalling-off zone, I'll call it,
32:14looking at the crystalline structure of the quartz crystals in this gray wacky,
32:21you can see the weathering in relation to the time it was carved.
32:30Yeah.
32:30And then the third that my dad and I were looking at
32:35was the backside of the stone is what was up.
32:44Yeah, face up.
32:45And there are glacial scratches on the backside of it.
32:55How long has the newspaper been in existence?
32:58Oh, since 1886.
33:00137 years.
33:02That's a long time.
33:04Joe visits Karen Borgford-Botting at the office of the Icelandic Logberg Heimskringler newspaper.
33:11It's the oldest regularly published paper in North America that serves the Icelandic community.
33:16As the team continues to build their case about their ancestors arriving to inland North America 700 years ago,
33:24they look to appropriate avenues to spread the word of their discoveries.
33:29The Icelandic newspaper is one example of how we get the word out.
33:33Having a magazine or a newspaper or a radio show get the word out,
33:38it gets us connected to people who may have information.
33:41I'd say we have probably 6,000 readers.
33:45I know that I'm going to be talking to a lot of folks that I know that they read one
33:48that's passed on and on and on.
33:50You don't want to pack the, you know, you don't want to, you want to keep it.
33:53And so the one way to keeping it is pass it on to someone else to read.
33:56That's the beauty of having a physical thing because you can feel it, touch it, read it,
34:01and then give it to somebody else because you don't want to get rid of it.
34:04You don't want to, but let's, let's go and chat in the boardroom and I can tell you what we've
34:08been up to.
34:09Sure.
34:12The first issue of the paper was printed on September 9th, 1886
34:17and continues to thrive because it gives a voice to people of Icelandic heritage across North America.
34:24Some of the earliest Icelandic settlers brought books and not much more
34:29when they first came to North America in 1875.
34:33Although they wanted to be patriotic to Canada,
34:37they also did not want to give up their Icelandic culture and history.
34:41And so they started the newspapers to share in Icelandic.
34:45And then in 1959, after it had been published in Icelandic,
34:50it started to gradually morph into English.
34:53So they maintained their language, their culture, their history.
34:58They did politics.
34:59Icelanders are known for keeping meticulous family records that go back a thousand years.
35:05A passion for their history continues to this day.
35:10Joe has a fortuitous moment when Karen randomly opens a paper to a story on the Kensington runestone.
35:18The first paper we opened up, we had the story about the Kensington stone.
35:21I didn't know you were coming to talk about that.
35:23No, this is, you know, it's excellent.
35:25Karen has no idea that the team have plans to visit the runestone in Alexandria, Minnesota, in the coming weeks.
35:31When Joe was at the newspaper and he was presented with a newspaper that's talking about the runestone,
35:38that's why we are out meeting people, because people have bits of information that they may not understand, connect to
35:46the story.
35:46You know, the follow-up on this story and other, this will sort of kick off this, the new look
35:51at,
35:52did they come from Hudson Bay and end up in Minnesota?
35:55In and around when the stone was carved, there was a medieval warming period,
35:59and almost certainly the Northwest Passage was ice-free, at least in the summertime.
36:04Coincidences are funny, because it's like luck.
36:07And we've been working on this a long time, and as we talk to people more,
36:12we get these lucky coincidences that lead us to more things.
36:17Joe tells Karen how he plans to find the Viking cairn in the north.
36:22A trapper in a blizzard came across something that was a cairn that was sealed,
36:28a fairly large thing, and it looked like a grave or a crypt or something.
36:31No windows, no doors, no way to get in.
36:33He didn't get into it, it was in the middle of a blizzard.
36:35And he looks around and he sees this thing that's like 6 feet wide, 6 feet tall,
36:39it's like 12 or 16 feet wide, not a small thing.
36:42Is it a Viking grave? Hard to say. Is it a grave?
36:46We hope we can find it, and shed some light on that, so.
36:49It's going to be really interesting, it's going to be an interesting ride.
36:59The first thing we did is we picked up on, you know,
37:02from a couple of days ago, where we thought this cache was.
37:12So the focus you guys were looking at was not the barren areas,
37:16but the actual trees and, like, the ravines, right?
37:18Exactly.
37:19Okay.
37:27That's the noodle of track we did.
37:30Yeah.
37:31Nothing really jumped out and said,
37:33the hay, you know, let's look here, but we had feelings, we had some feelings really excited.
37:38See those two black dots on the, kind of, the left half,
37:41sort of to the center but on the left side?
37:43They don't look like they go that far in, but they were kind of interesting.
37:47So you can definitely see there's valleys that are rivers.
37:52So, if you think about whoever built this thing,
37:54you're not going to build this in a river, just, that's just, you're not going to do it.
37:59Bog, same thing, right?
38:00So we started looking at the high points, and it's, you can really see them.
38:05We just don't have enough days left,
38:07because we ran into some weather and a whole bunch of other things.
38:10I think, I think we still have some, you know,
38:13another couple of hours of flying in the 185.
38:16You can see a lot, like, you can see a lot.
38:18You can see right into the trees.
38:20Some of them still have a lot of snow in.
38:22Is it under the snow?
38:25It is evident that questions of Norse presence are met with uncertainty.
38:31Even with experts like Janie suggesting the rune stone's authenticity, doubt remains.
38:37Perhaps if something definitive was found, like the cairn,
38:41it would create a domino effect for other artifacts believed to be of similar origin.
38:47With my dad's interest in paleoclimate change and glaciers coming and going,
38:52he knew exactly what glacial scratches look like.
38:57Glacial striations, or scratches, occur when glaciers move over land and pick up sediment and rock.
39:04These tiny accumulations to the glacier act as sandpaper, scraping rock underneath it and showing the direction it flowed.
39:12When a glacier is moving, it has all sorts of grit and sand and pebbles and other stones that have
39:22been carried by that glacier.
39:25You can't fake this.
39:27It has to be authentic.
39:29Even with Janie's expert opinion on the Kensington rune stone, it is still argued to be a hoax.
39:35However, Janie's father's observation of the glacial scratches helps authenticate the age of the stone,
39:43thus proving that the stone is, at the very least, local to the area.
39:48We could see that the glacially scratched backside, that was about 8,000 years of weathering,
39:58because that's when the glaciers receded from that part of Minnesota, 8,000 years ago.
40:03And then we had exposed at the time of carving, and then fresh.
40:11Control, yeah.
40:12Yes.
40:12Yeah.
40:13So what happens with crystal structure when it's weathered is that it becomes more rounded.
40:25That's what happens with the weathering process.
40:30Right.
40:30Here we have not-so-weathered, sharp edges, more cube-y stuff going on, cubic.
40:38The exposed surface, and especially on the back, very rounded crystals.
40:42You can see it under the microscope.
40:47Somewhat rounded, not super sharp, crisp edges to the crystals.
40:51And then the Newton-Winchell flake removal area.
40:55Fresh.
40:56Sharp.
40:56Yeah.
40:57You can't fake this.
40:58It has to be authentic.
41:00It had nothing to do with linguistics.
41:02It's the differences of weathering, comparing one surface to another.
41:13The team will meet up in Alexandria, Minnesota, at the Runestone Museum.
41:19The museum was established in 1958, and houses a 40-piece collection of artifacts from middle-aged Nordic explorers.
41:30However, the team is also looking to talk to locals about their own artifacts that haven't made it to museums
41:37yet.
41:38A piece sitting on someone's mantle could unlock a Viking mystery.
41:45David, Joe, and Mackenzie think some Alexandria residents might be skeptical of them, but they are just treasure hunters.
41:54The team will have to earn the trust, just like their ancestors did, and prove to the people they are
42:00looking for truth and answer.
42:03It's important for us to be seen as open-minded and trustworthy, because being told people's oral stories may not
42:12be anything we're looking for.
42:14But until we talk to them and we build a trust and they tell us more, we have to go
42:19listen to it.
42:20But they're also aware of the scrutiny that may come from the general scientific and geological communities if they find
42:29answers that contradict current historical beliefs.
43:06But they'll see you in the future.
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