Posted on 03/19/2011 2:22:44 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
Winnipeg students will get a chance to unleash their inner Viking.
And before the students in Grades 3 and 5 think it means they'll have a chance to attack and pillage European communities, they'll soon discover Vikings have been wrongly stereotyped through the ages.
"We want these children to have a lasting impression about Viking life as it was rather than the stereotyped image," Selma Parsons, president of the Scandinavian Centre, said on Friday.
"Yes, we have reenactment-quality swords, shields and chain mail, but we also want to show them they were traders, settlers, and explorers."
But Parsons said that doesn't mean the Vikings weren't above pillaging European communities. Vikings were at their peak from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.
"They just happened to be much better than anyone else, so they got the reputation," she said.
"They just happened to know where the money was and they knew it was in monasteries and they weren't Catholic, so they didn't care."
The school program, called 'Everyone wants to be a Viking,' was the idea of Natalie Denesovych, the honorary Norwegian consul for Manitoba.
(Excerpt) Read more at winnipegfreepress.com ...
Even more amazing is that the Norse lacked saws, compasses, rulers, nails, screws, etc.
Every ship was built using only eyesight and experience to measure and cut the pieces that would fit together to make a watertight, seaworthy vessel. The knowledge was passed from generation to generation through long apprenticeship. They had no manuals on "How to build a Viking long boat".
The very shallow draft of the Viking ships was useful also in France, where the Norsemen navigated far up the Rhone river into the heart of the country; whereas most ships would have been stopped by the many bridges they encountered, the Viking ships just sailed beneath them.
When necessary, the ships could be partially dismantled and carried from one shallow body of water to the next navigable river, as they did in Russia in order to reach the Volga and the Black Sea.
Cod: A Biography of the
Fish that Changed the World
by Mark Kurlansky
Kindle Edition
Hardcover
CD Audiobook
Unabridged Audible Audio Edition
http://www.markkurlansky.com/books/other_non-fiction.aspx
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
Hardback, Walker, 1997
Paperback, Penguin, 1998
A history of the 1000 years in which cod was the most important catch in the Atlantic, how wars were fought over it, how it spurred revolutions, the important role it played in American, Caribbean, African, and European history. Winner of the James Beard Award, the Glenfiddich food writing award, the New York Public Library Best Books of the Year award. A New York Times and International best seller, translated into more than twenty languages. Historian David McCullough wrote, “Every once in a while a writer of particular skill takes afresh, seemingly improbable idea and turns out a book of pure delight. Such is the case of Mark Kurlansky and the codfish.”
One of the nicer prospects of being a Viking is its unlikely you would have died of old age or a prolonged illness!
funny....I added it to my blog
Shetland’s past comes to life amid the ruins
The Scotsman | Tuesday, 18th April 2006 | Caroline Wickham-Jones
Posted on 04/17/2006 10:29:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1616897/posts?page=8#8
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