Review: 'America's Lost Vikings'

I'm a bit of a history nerd, so it's not surprising that I've long been fascinated with the stories of the various Viking expeditions to America. Vikings - or to be precise, the Norse people - were long rumored to have made numerous trips to America. Several of the primary Icelandic sagas such as Eirik the Red's Saga and the Saga of the Greenlanders tell tales of trips to what is now America that began not long after the Norse people settled in Greenland in the 980s.

But until quite recently, there wasn't a great deal of confirmed archaeological evidence of the trips. It wasn't until the 1960s when archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad and her husband Helge Ingstad, excavated a Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland that most historians began to accept at least some of the claims made by the Norse legends.

Still, there are many more questions than answers and that's the premise of "America's Lost Vikings," which premieres this Sunday on the Science Channel. Archaeologists and explorers Blue Nelson and Mike Arbuthnot are seeking to discover as much as they can about the Vikings time in America and they begin at the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. They examine the site and conduct experiments to determine whether it would have been possible to survive the harsh Newfoundland winters dressed in garb likely worn by the Vikings.

While all history-based shows like this tend to spend a lot of time rediscovering things people already know, "America's Lost Vikings" does a good job of fleshing out the story of the Vikings in a new way. I especially enjoyed the segment which argues something I hadn't heard before. That the reason why the Vikings were at L'Anse aux Meadows was likely because of its plentiful bog iron, which the Norse people used for everything from nails to impressively lethal swords. There is also a trip to Iceland to research historical documents and the predictable unfortunate attempt to sample authentic Viking food.

I've only seen the first episode of the series, so I'm not quite sure where the season will lead next. But I quickly added it to my DVR as soon as I watched the premiere. Which in 2019 is as much of a ringing endorsement as you can get about a show.

"America's Lost Vikings" premieres on the Science Channel Sunday, February 10th, 2018 at 10/9c.