Found, this morning on Facebook! Sometimes you get lucky, and it appears the algorithims worked in my favor for once, since the video above was only posted today. Usually they serve up an assortment of AI slop, videos of Congress members yelling at each other in committee hearings and the Trump regime’s off-again, on-again neo-imperial designs on Iran, Canada and Greenland. But this time they brought me a video by a content creator called Newfiestick about Vikings from Greenland who set up a base camp. a thousand years ago in Newfoundland.
I couldn’t find much about Newfiestick, but here’s how the creator(s) identify the site: “Newfoundland’s legends, disasters & heroes — a new story every day, told in 3 short parts — Joined Jul 22, 2026 https://www.youtube.com/@Newfiestick.”
Newfiestick’s YouTube blurb (first two grafs):
It is the twenty-first of July, 1960, and you are standing on a grassy terrace above a little brook at the very top of Newfoundland, in a fishing village of about a dozen houses called L’Anse aux Meadows. You have walked past the same low grassy bumps in this field a thousand times, and everyone in the village calls them the same thing: the old Indian camp. This morning a boat came into the bay, and a tall stranger stepped off it with an old book under his arm and a question he has been asking up and down the coast for weeks. Have you got any old ruins around here? You say, sure. Here’s some ruins.
This is the story of the house at the top of the island: a Norse hall built a thousand years ago by people who came from the wrong direction, a fisherman who always knew it was there, a Norwegian who believed a book, and a storm on the sun that told us the exact year. […]
If that hooks you — and it certainly hooked me even though I’ve known about Helge Ingstad (the tall stranger) and the digs he and his wife archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad conducted in L’Anse aux Meadows for years — you can read the rest in the notes to the YouTube clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6ks_phqcpA&t=20s.
- Citation: “A Fisherman Walked Past a Viking House His Whole Life. A Norwegian With an Old Book Knew What It Was,” Newfiestick, Sept. 7, 2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6ks_phqcpA (accessed today).
Here’s what Wikipedia says about the archaeological site at L’Anse aux Meadows:
With carbon dating estimates between 990 and 1050 CE (mean date 1014)[3][4][5] and tree-ring dating of 1021,[6][7] L’Anse aux Meadows is the only undisputed site of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact of Europeans with the Americas outside of Greenland.[5] It is notable as evidence of the Norse presence in North America and for its possible connection with the accounts of Leif Erikson in the Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Erik the Red,[8] which were written down in the 13th century.[5] Archaeological evidence suggests the settlement served as a base camp for Norse exploration of North America, including regions to the south.[9]
Spanning 8,000 hectares (31 sq mi) of land and sea, the site contains the remains of eight buildings constructed of sod over a wood frame, with over 800 Norse objects unearthed,[10] including bronze, bone, and stone artifacts, and evidence of iron production.[11] The site was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1968 and a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978,[12] and is managed by Parks Canada.[13]
The Wikipedia page is full of information, and I’ve left the links and notes intact if anyone wants to read more of it. One other bit is worth mentioning here, though. What was the “old book” Helge Ingstad was arrying when he first visited L’Anse aux Meadows? We can’t be sure, of course, but we can be sure it would have contained the following sources:
In 1073, the German cleric Adam of Bremen wrote the oldest known document mentioning Vinland, a history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, who held ecclesiastical authority over Norse Scandinavia at the time. He wrote:
“He [the Danish king Sven Estridsson] also told me of another island discovered by many in that ocean. It is called Vinland because vines grow there on their own accord, producing the most excellent wine. Moreover, that unsown crops abound there, we have ascertained not from fabulous conjecture but from the reliable reports of the Danes.” [43]
Two traditional Icelandic sagas, the Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Erik the Red, tell of the Norse Greenlanders who discovered and attempted to settle a land to the west which they called Vinland. These sagas (together known as the Vinland sagas) recount quarrels among the Norsemen and bloody fights with the native people they called Skrælings, which led to the abandonment of the effort.[44]
Here’s Facebook’s embed of the Newfiestick reel:
And Google’s AI Overview has this on Newfiestick’s website:
Newfiestick is a social media storytelling project that shares the history, folklore, and dramatic events of Newfoundland and Labrador. [1]
How It Works
- Daily Stories: A new historical or mythical tale is published every day.
- Three Parts: Each narrative is broken down into three short, suspenseful parts released throughout the day.
- Local Focus: Topics cover regional legends, shipwrecks, wartime events, and cultural milestones. [1, 2, 3, 4]
As described on its official page, Newfiestick highlights “Newfoundland’s legends, disasters & heroes — a new story every day, told in 3 short parts.”
[Uplinked Sept. 7, 2026]
Ordinary Time 