On Friday, the day after our accidental trip to Narsaq, we were able to arrange a private tour to take us to the Hvalsey Church ruins. This time, it was just the three of us, a guide, and the boat captain. It was nice to go without other tourists, so we could take it at our own pace.
We sped down the fjord on Captain Karl's small boat, along with our guide, Susannah. It was a clear, sunny afternoon, and there was little ice in our path. The water turned from deep blue to turquoise as we got further down the fjord, closer to the ruins.
At the site, there is a small wooden dock, where we debarked easily. When we arrived, there was noone else around except for a number of sheep grazing on the hillside that had wandered over from a nearby farm. Small white and yellow wildflowers dotted the landscape. It was a beautiful, pastoral scene, with the lush green and golden grasses rimmed by the blue-green water and the dramatic granite mountains rising overhead. I could see why the early settlers would be attracted to the place and want to live in such a setting. I had read that the weather was milder further up the fjords, and during the normal weather cycles, somewhat similar to Norway.
We hiked aong a narrow path to the ruins of a Norse church. Most of the structure is still standing, even though it is over 1,000 years old. Erik the Red first led settlers to Greenland in the year 987, and at one point, about 5,000 settlers lived among the fjords of southern and western Greenland. By 1450, they had disappeared and the farmsteads were completely abandoned. All that remains are stone ruins of churches, barns, and homes. The Hvalsey Church is one of the most complete, and stands much the way the later explorers found it in the 1800s. The only thing missing is the turn roof, although Susannah explained that one of the walls had been rebuilt for safety after it started to lean.
Susannah explained to us that the granite in the surrounding hills has the amazing property of breaking off on smooth, flat planes, and at 90 degree angles. This made making "bricks" of the rocks fairly easy, even with primitive tools. The settlers used ground mussel shells to make a mortar paste to hold the bricks together. It looked pieced together like a giant unfinished jigsaw puzzle. Luckily, the area is not prone to earthquakes, because I doubt this building would pass inspection in California.
Usually, the walls of buildings were made from these granite bricks. There are no native trees in Greenland due to the extremes of the climate, so any wood had to be brought in from Norway, or occasional but dangerous trips to "Markland" (Labrador, Canada). The roof was covered with cut-outs of the turf, which insulated the building from the cold in winter. Unfortunately, dirt and sod erode over time, so all that is standing now are the brick walls.
Nearby, there is a large rectangular trench with more crudely crafted bricks around. Susannah told us that this was the church hall, where social gatherings would take place. A smaller rectangle between the two was the evidently the barn, where the priests kept their sheep and cows. Even though there are no native sheep, goats or cows, all of these domestic farm animals were introduced and raised by the Viking settlers.
In the center of the complex of ruins stands a marker with an explanation of the site. I walked up to read the marker with Susannah. A large ram was laying on the grass next to it. Only when I got right next to it did I realize that the animal was dead. It must have died recently, because it had not decayed or started to smell bad. It was a bit disconcerting to see this dead sheep lying on the ground, and I was worried about how Alex would take it. He has refused to eat lamb chops in the past because as he says, "Mom, I don't eat nature."
I'm not sure Alex noticed the dead ram. If he did, it didn't register with him or scare him. He did, however, ask me a few times when we were going to see any real, live Vikings. I guess he was expecting something like a Viking Colonial Williamsburg, where people would be dressed in costumes and pillaging villages when they were not milking cows. I told him that this was where they lived, but they had been gone for a long, long time. I think he was envisioning some guys in bearskin clothing with horned helmets running up to greet us at the site, so he was a little disappointed. He amused himself by finding rocks with quartz in them that glistened in the sun, along with some blue mussel shells at the water's edge. Susannah said, "Your boy has a lot of energy, but is a very focused little being. I like that."
Susannah told us that she once had a tour group of Swedish Vikings come to visit, led by an archaeologist. They wore Viking costumes and had swords and metal tools that they had forged themselves. They wanted to test their theories on how the Vikings lived, and see whether the tools they made would actually work. She said it was a little embarassing to be walking around town with a group of Viking re-creators. I think Alex would have loved that, especially the part with the swords.
There is something very moving about looking at ruins of ancient civilizations. We've been to Leptis Magna, Pompeii, Stonehenge, Maltese temples, and other historic sites, and I always feel as though the stones are embedded with secret stories of the past. The thought that human hands helped to shape the structures for dwelling or for worship, puts us in touch with what we all have in common, both the need to survive and the yearning to understand the unknown and unknowab
le.
After an hour of snapping pictures and taking in the scenery, we head back across the water in Captain Karl's boat. He stopped at some bird cliffs and got out a brass horn, opened the hatch, and tooted the horn. The white birds left their rocky perches and circled overhead, against the blue sky. Alex took a turn with the horn, and was delighted at the sight. There was something magical in that moment of looking out from the boat at the sky with the birds circling, hovering and diving overhead. This was one of the most memorable days of our trip to Greenland.
