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it possible to extract a reasonable and easily
defensible account of the visit of Norsemen to America in
the early part of the eleventh century? I believe
that it is.
In the first place, one must accept Dr. Storm’s
verdict, based on wide research and careful
consideration, that the version of the Vinland sagas known
as the Saga of Erik the Red, as found in Hauk’s
Book and the Arnc-Magnean manuscript No. 557, is
the better and more reliable account, free from grave
errors of historical fact which disfigure the other
version, found in the Plat Island Book. Not only
this, all attempts at identification of the regions
visited, following this saga as the principal authority,
have lamentably failed.
A careful reading of the Saga of Erik the Red
will, in my opinion, show—not to dwell on Leif
Erik-son’s accidental discovery—that Thorfinn Karlsefni,
the rea? explorer of the saga, visited lands that may
easily be identified as Labrador, Newfoundland, and
Nova Scotia (including Cape Breton Island). This
was Dr. Storm’s view. Dr. Storm was a great
authority on Old Norse history and literature. But
when it came to the question of detailed
identification of the places visited by the Norse voyagers, he
did not have the necessary familiarity with
conditions on the American coast to speak with authority.
But his argument for Nova Scotia as Vinland, based
largely on the saga narrative, was a step in the right
direction. But I believe that it is now possible, on
the basis of the same narrative, to go a step farther.
On account of the description of Straum-ey
(Stream or Current Island) and Straum-fjord, con-
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