Having dealt with the more modern reconstructions, let's now turn our attention to the remains of the buildings that are said to be of vernacular Norse construction.

A helpful stone tablet just here, carved in English and not in ancient runes, informs me that here are the remains of a dwelling house, a ship repair site and a forge.

The stone tablet just here informs me that this is the site of a Norse workshop, although the kind of work that was carried out here is not specified.

How they have been able to identify the purpose of each of these buildings is by excavation. All kinds of things will be dropped on the floor by the inhabitants and then trodden into the surface before they could be recovered. Excavation will uncover them, and it's from the proportion of finds of different types of artefact from each site that will determine the likely use to which the building on the site was put.

Here is a photo of Strawberry Moose having taken occupation of the Norse workshop.

In case you are wondering, by the way, Strawberry Moose was at one time the unofficial and very controversial mascot of the students of the Open University in the UK and after he was expelled he took up residence in my van. He makes his living by accompanying me on my travels and being photographed in all kinds of exciting and unusual places and positions. A very versatile moose, one might say, and in great demand.

This is said to be the site of a dwelling-house and a woodworking shop. And you might be forgiven for thinking that there is no wood here to work, but don't forget that a thousand years ago the climate was much different than it is today - almost certainly warmer.

Furthermore, one of the places past which the Norse sailed to come here was known as Markland - almost certainly somewhere along the Labrador coast - and there is a record dating from 1347 of a longship arriving in Iceland, "after being blown off course on its way home from Markland to Greenland with a load of timber".

If they can be shipping timber from the Labrador coast to Greenland as late as 1347 there's no reason at all to doubt that they would be shipping it over the much shorter distance from Markland to Vinland, especially given the easier climate 300 years earlier.

As an aside, I make a great deal of reference to "the easier climate" during the period in which the Norse were voyaging to North America. This is not under any circumstances to belittle or undervalue the achievements of the Norse sailors who sailed - and rowed - in open boats across a thousand miles of open water and uncharted seas in arctic conditions with the aim of making a precise landfall on a coast whose perils and dangers were a totally unknown factor.

This is said to be the site of a house and workshop, although once again the type of work that was carried on in the workshop is not stated. In the background are the remains of a building that might have been used for storage or other non-domestic purposes.

As with all of the remains, the house walls are pretty prominent and a deeper green than the surrounding land. This area is of course relatively unpopulated and so the land has not been reclaimed for agriculture, and so the turf walls of the buildings have not been ploughed back into the soil, but left to decay over the centuries.

The extra thickness of the turf walls (the soil is quite thin here) encourages a more luxuriant growth of vegetation - hence the darker green.

Here are the remains of what are said to be a house and small forge.

And I bet you are wondering where the Norse found the iron that was worked in the forge. I was wondering that too. after all, it is not very likely that they travelled all the way into the interior of the Upper Labrador Plateau to find it, and then bring it here to smelt.

But iron is available locally, and I'll tell you all about that in early course.

The final group of remains are those of another forge and a smithy, built into a low bank here on the north side of the bay.

Judging by the number of forges, smithies and other ironworking sites here, when compared to the number of other buildings, and there was certainly not a great number of settlers or inhabitants here, it seems to me that ironworking was one of the more important activities that was carried on by the Norse here.

I think that that concludes my visit of the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. It's a shame that the Visitor Centre was closed to visitors such as myself. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to look inside, examine the artefacts and find out more about the excavations, but I've become accunstomed to this.

In fact it's rather bizarre in a way.

The tourist season here in Newfoundland and Labrador, and many other places too, just seems to be mid-summer and that's your lot. But a great many people, Yours Truly included, much prefer to travel out of season when the roads are quiet and accommodation is more readily (I almost said "more freely" but I need to be careful here, with what I am obliged to spend) available. And I bet that the hotel and guest house keepers would appreciate much more business too by a prolonged - or what I would call a "normal" season.

But no-one is going to come as a tourist if all of the tourist attractions are closed.

And this is by anyone's standards or measurements the most important historic site in the whole of Canada, and an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The idea that it is closed at any time of the year is something that I find difficult to understand.

And so to conclude …

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