A Viking ship makes it way to the New World
Uncovering and recreating the past
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The reconstructed Viking was a sensation at the World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, in 1893.
Timothy Boyce
Tyron, N.C.
The crew of a schooner sailing off the coast of Newport, R.I., in the early morning hours of June 14, 1893, could be forgiven for doubting their very eyes. What they beheld seemed to have sprung from the pages of an old Norse saga: a 78-foot wooden Viking ship, complete with a tall, single sail, along with 12 bearded sailors speaking Norwegian. The ship looked like it belonged in the distant past, with its clinker hull construction, dragon head and tail, and side-mounted steering oar, and for good reason: it was an exact copy of a real, 9th-century craft, the so-called Gokstad ship.
Photo: Wikimedia
The Gokstad ship was uncovered in 1880.
Thirteen years earlier, in 1880, two enterprising sons of a farmer who owned the Gokstad Farm in Sandefjord, Norway, intrigued by legends they had heard, decided to explore a burial mound on their property. What the two young men discovered in the 165-foot long by 140-foot wide by 16-foot high mound was a nearly intact wooden ship, serving as a burial place for what must have been a very important person, perhaps a local chieftain, perhaps even a king.
Dating back to about the year 890, the ship had been carefully packed in with blue-clay silt, a perfect medium for preserving a wooden structure. To help the buried bigwig on his journey to the underworld, the ship also contained the remains of 12 horses, six dogs, and one peacock—a rarity no doubt befitting the decedent’s significance.
Once the Gokstad boys realized the significance of what they had stumbled across, authorities were alerted, and the ship was expertly excavated, restored, and eventually given a permanent home in Norway’s Viking Ship Museum, located in Oslo.
So, why was a replica of the Gokstad ship, reconstructed with exacting fidelity to the original, now sailing off the waters of Newport on the morning of the June 14, 1893?
The ship was on its way to serve as Norway’s exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition, being held in Chicago the same year. The idea for a celebration, or world’s fair, had been percolating throughout the United States in the years leading up to the quadricentennial anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the so-called New World in 1492.
Many cities, including New York, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C., vied for the honor of hosting such a celebration, but Chicago, which had solid financial backing, available land, and a strong desire to show the world that it had recovered from the devastating 1871 fire caused by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, was ultimately chosen. It was an era of World’s Fairs, each trying to outdo its predecessors, whether it was Britain’s Crystal Palace Exposition of 1851, or the Paris World’s Fair of 1889, which introduced the Eiffel Tower to the world.
The World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, also tried to outdo its predecessors, with many tantalizing firsts: the first Ferris wheel, the first talking movies, and the first appearance of the brownie and Juicy Fruit gum.
Equally important was another first: inviting foreign countries to submit their own exhibits for display.
Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen / Wikimedia
Today, the preserved Gokstad ship may be found at the Viking Museum on Bygdøy in Oslo.
Norway, bursting with nationalistic pride, while still part of Sweden (full independence would only come 12 years later, in 1905), readily accepted the invitation. The Norwegians, however, were less than enthusiastic about celebrating the prowess of Christopher Columbus when their own sagas suggested that the Norse people, not Columbus, were the first Europeans to arrive in America.
What better way to prove this point than to recreate, as nearly as possible, a voyage using the Viking technology that existed in the ninth century—technology as embodied in the Gokstad ship.
Shipbuilders were engaged, and by Feb. 2, 1893, a perfect replica of the Gokstad ship was ready. All it needed was a crew brave (or foolish) enough to hazard the more than 2,500-mile voyage over the North Atlantic, from Norway to New York, and then on to Chicago via the Hudson River, Erie Canal, and Great Lakes. Even the Norwegian government was dubious—sailing a replica Viking ship smacked of a sport “and a very dangerous sport at that.” Accordingly, it was left to a public subscription by nearly 15,000 people to provide the necessary financing.
Although the crew of 12 (selected from hundreds of applicants) was young—ranging in age from 20 to 43, they did not lack for experience. The captain, Magnus Andersen, was only 36 but already had been sailing for 21 years; his first mate, Johan Gundersen, the oldest member at 43, had been at sea for 29 years. Most other crew members had also gone to sea around age 14. The crew was not only experienced, they were adventurous. In 1886, Captain Andersen, along with second mate, Christen Christensen, had tried to sail across the Atlantic in a sailboat one-quarter the size of the Viking Ship. They almost accomplished this daring feat, reaching to within 80 miles of Newfoundland before their boat capsized, whereupon they were rescued by a passing British steamer. The Viking Ship must have seemed like a luxury liner by comparison.
Photo: National Library of Norway
The completed Viking as seen in Oslo (Christiana) harbor (lower right) with Fridtjof Nansen’s ship, the Fram (upper left), before Nansen’s departure for the North Pole.
The finished ship was launched on Feb. 2, 1893, before a crowd of 8,000 spectators in Oslo (then Christiana) harbor. After a short stopover in Bergen, the Viking Ship began its cross-Atlantic voyage on April 30, 1893, arriving, as noted, in the waters outside Newport six eventful weeks later. By July 13, it was safely ensconced in Chicago.
Captain Andersen and his Norwegian crew had certainly accomplished their main goal: proving that a ninth-century wooden ship could have survived the rigors of a North Atlantic crossing, carrying the Norse peoples to North America. What made their accomplishment all the sweeter was learning that Spain’s contributions to the fair, reproductions of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, had to be towed across the Atlantic by a Spanish warship. A member of the Viking crew, R.E. Rasmussen, published a memoir of his experiences (later translated into English) which never fails to note the “much grander reception” the Viking Ship received versus the Spanish caravels.
Without a doubt, and even taking Rasmussen’s observations with a grain of salt, the Norwegian exhibit was a huge success, as was the exposition as a whole. In its six-month life (May to October) the Columbian Exposition attracted 27 million visitors—this at a time when the entire U.S. population stood at only 63 million.
Photo: Bob Hilscher / iStock
L’Anse aux Meadows, located on the northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada, is the site of the only known Norse settlement in North America outside of Greenland.
It would take another 67 years for the possibility suggested by the Viking to become a reality, when Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his wife, Anne, a trained archeologist, discovered the ruins of a Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland, in 1960. The site proved that Norse people, perhaps as many as 160 at one time, inhabited a permanent settlement in the Americas for at least 10 to 20 years.
Photo: Friends of the Viking Ship
The dragon’s head of 100-year-old ship has now been restored.
Clues left at the site tantalizingly suggest that it was used as a staging area for further voyages of exploration along the North American mainland. For example, remains of butternuts were found at L’Anse aux Meadows, although butternut trees do not grow any farther north than the latitude of New Brunswick, Canada, hundreds of miles to the south.
Perhaps the mysterious “Vinland” of the Norse Sagas will yet be discovered, completing a process begun by 12 hardy souls and their epic 1893 trip to the New World.
Postscript: The Viking Ship—now well over 100 years-old itself—is currently located in Geneva, Ill., where it has been restored and preserved, and can be viewed. For more information, visit the website of the Friends of the Viking Ship (vikingship.us).
This article originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of The Norwegian American.
