The Vinland of the Northmen

Sir Daniel Wilson (January 5, 1816 – August 6, 1892) was a Scottish-born Canadian archaeologist, ethnologist and writer.
In 1853 Wilson left Scotland to take up the post of Professor of History and English Literature in Toronto, Canada. In addition to his teaching duties, he kept up his interests in Natural history, Geology, and was very interested in the Ethnography of the indigenous groups that he encountered on his vacation treks.
In 1861 he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society and, in 1875, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He also served as president of the Canadian Institute from 1878-1881, as president of University College, Toronto, from 1880 to 1892, and as the first president of the federated University of Toronto from 1892.
Wilson’s final masterpiece, The Lost Atlantis and other Ethnographic Studies, published posthumously in 1892, serves as a fascinating compendium of his lifelong intellectual pursuits, blending archaeological rigor with ethnographic observation. From this monumental collection we have today selected for our readers the essay The Vinland of the Northmen. It represents a crucial moment in 19th-century historiography dedicated to pre-Columbian voyages. Wilson moves with balance between the allure of myth and the rigour of scientific research, analyzing the transition of Norse tales from legendary dimensions to documented historical evidence.