The Far Traveler

Description:

Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed past the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, few believed that the details of Gudrid's story were true. Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman's last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the sagas suggested it could be. Joining scientists with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid's steps on land and in the sagas, author Brown reconstructs a life that spanned--and expanded--the bounds of the then-known world.--From publisher description.

subjects: Travel,  Norse,  Women,  Sagas,  Viking ships,  Excavations (Archaeology),  Biography,  Discovery and exploration,  Vikings,  Iceland, history,  America, discovery and exploration,  Excavations (archaeology), europe,  Women, biography,  Women, europe,  New York Times reviewed,  Iceland, description and travel

People: Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir

Places: Greenland,  Iceland,  North America,  Vikings