October is the month we celebrate Columbus Day. This year it is Monday, October 12, which is exactly the day commemorating the day Columbus and his crew reached the New World and started the race for conquest and settlement in the western hemisphere. He thought it was Asia. He was off by only about 7,600 miles. The year was 1492. Over 500 years ago. He would return to the New World 3 more times before his death in 1506, exploring even to the coast of South America.
(As a side light to this, on October 12, 1992, I was in Puerto Rico with one of my best friends returning from a mission trip to St. Lucia in the Caribbean where we gave out eye glasses and checked eyes for a week. We stayed in San Juan for a day, and as we were walking the streets looking around, a large mariachi band with fellows in conquistador hats and capes went marching down the street in front of us. We never made the connection until that moment that we would be in the Caribbean on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ famous landing. The party was all over the city, and we were in the middle of it.)
It’s been over 5 centuries since that milestone day. I have a hard time wrapping my head around trying to imagine 500 years. I have been on this earth a mere 6 decades, a little more than ten percent of that time. And even as life seems to go by in a flash, I still have difficulty imagining 500 years. 500 years of discovery, of conquest, of settling, of developing, of thriving, of suffering, living and dying, all to come to the place where we are today. I think the settlers of the New World would be amazed at who we have become today. I think they would be proud of the accomplishments, and ashamed of the divisiveness that accompany our world today.
This summer we visited Newfoundland and went all the way to it’s northernmost point, L’Anse aux Meadows. This is the place where Leif Erikson, a Viking explorer, first touched down in the New World back in about the year 1000. Yeah, that’s not a typo. The year 1000. 500 years BEFORE Columbus! Leif Erikson was the great Viking Erik the Red’s son, hence the name, Leif Erik’s son (Erikson). He was a converted Christian who set about trying to evangelize the Greenlanders. He set up an outpost in Newfoundland to be a trading spot for his endeavors centered around Greenland, where he ruled, somewhat like a monarch until somewhere around 1020 AD.
You can still see the place where he and his company set up a small settlement on the shore of the north Atlantic at L’Anse aux Meadows. The foundations are still visible after 1000 years. It’s a fascinating place to visit, and if you go early enough in the spring you’ll be apt to seeing plenty of icebergs floating by you in the north Atlantic. I recommend this place as a place where you can stretch your imagination muscles and try to envision the time 1000 years ago, half the way back to the time of Jesus Christ (at 1 AD), and imagine a life by the sea, where the elements were harsh, and survival was not guaranteed.
We don’t celebrate Leif Erikson Day in America, at least like we should. It’s actually October 9 every year in the United States. It was proclaimed by President Lyndon Johnson back in 1964. It doesn’t celebrate his birth or his landing. Instead, it celebrates the anniversary of the ship Restauration arriving in New York from Norway back in 1825, which began the first wave of Norwegian settlers to America.
It’s not a federal public holiday, but it would still be fun to commemorate his landing on this continent 1000 years ago. So, go get a Viking helmet with horns, get a ram’s horn to blow, and celebrate 1000 years of North American Viking heritage, even if you don’t have a drop of Norse blood flowing in your veins.
After all, he beat Columbus by 500 years. That ought to account for something…
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