Segundo um historiador amador, os pés de noz manteiga (butternut tree) podem indicar que os vikings foram para muito além de L'Anse aux Meadows (Enseada das Medusas).
Este historiador acredita que uma espécie de nogueira ameaçada de extinção, a qual pode ser encontrada em New Brunswick, seja uma forte evidência de que os vikings já visitaram a província.
Os pés de noz manteiga são encontrados ao longo do baixo vale do rio St. John e já foram bastantes abundantes antes das colheitas excessivas.
A árvore é encontrada em New Brunswick, mas não em Newfoundland (Terra Nova).
Em L'Anse aux Meadows, o único sítio arqueológico viking confirmado no Canadá, o qual está localizado entre Newfoundland e Labrador, há evidências de troncos das supracitadas nogueiras. Ao que tudo indica, as árvores foram cortadas com ferramentas europeias, o que excluiria a sua importação pelos povos indígenas.
The presence of foreign logs cut by European tools near a Viking settlement makes Tim McLaughlin, secretary of the New Brunswick Historical Society, believe that Vikings harvested the logs in New Brunswick.
"It's a suggestion, a very strong suggestion that the Norse, or the Vikings, went well beyond L'Anse-aux-Meadows a thousand years ago," said Tim McLaughlin, secretary of the New Brunswick Historical Society.
The theory is gaining some traction, with Parks Canada's senior archeologist emerita Birgitta Wallace telling CBC News in 2018 that she believes Vikings did visit the province.
The sagas
The Norse sagas, semi-factual stories about the Vikings, talk about a place called Vinland.
The sagas, written between 1200 and 1300, describe battles and travels that took place between the 9th and 11th centuries.
Vinland is described as a paradise, with high tides and grapes and warmer than Greenland, which the Vikings also explored.
This can be used to describe areas in New Brunswick, McLaughlin said.
"They found wild grapes, they found big trees, they experienced extremely high tides, they encountered a lot of wildlife a lot of salmon and different fish, whales and so forth," said McLaughlin.
"It was a relatively mild land compared to where they come from, Greenland, which is fairly inhospitable."
Where in New Brunswick
According to McLaughlin, there are two areas in the province that people believe are Vinland: Miramichi and the Bay of Fundy coast.
Miramichi is, of course, closer to Newfoundland, and the Vikings would not have had to sail around the Maritimes to get there.
But McLaughlin thinks the Fundy coast is more likely, since butternut trees and grapes are more plentiful in southern New Brunswick.
"Just the descriptions of the landscape I tend to think that it accords more with the Bay of Fundy than Miramichi," said McLaughlin.
Forgotten history?
While the province may have a legitimate claim to the title of Vinland, this isn't really promoted.
McLaughlin said this is because there is no concrete artifacts or site that people can point to, such as L'Anse-aux-Meadows because Vinland wasn't a place where the Vikings settled down.
"They didn't build any permanent structures," said McLaughlin.
"They built what they called booths, which were temporary structures, and they were really just here to gather resources. So it's really not that surprising that we haven't found anything in New Brunswick to connect it with Vineland."
McLaughlin is hosting a talk about the province's possible connections to the Vikings on Tuesday at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John.
FONTE: CBC
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/vikings-new-brunswick-butternut-1.5335566
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