Kensington Rune Stone

myself | 1-9-02 | myself

[DensaMensa]

>"A large man" would lean and help himself and a canoe to balance, jump out and help push or bail in emergencies,

I see your point, but I've been in canoes where the load of tents and supplies was more than 220lbs, and even though it didn't help balance or jump out and help push it made the trip OK. ha. I would classify the argument that it couldn't have been moved by a canoe (or otherwise) a pretty weak one.

[crystalk]

If you are right, it would increase the chance that the stone is legitimate.

[DensaMensa]

The Indians probably had a special oversized "Bekins Edition" canoe, designed just for long haul moving. ha.

[LostTribe]

It's not too difficult to trace the Hebrews from Abraham ~2000 BC through the Lost Tribes of Israel to the Celts, and from there to the Vikings. And you can get the Vikings from Scandinavia to Minnesota. With a little help from Barry Fells America BC I think this whole geneology might fall neatly into line.

[Free Trapper]

I use canoes in my work and 220 pounds would be nothing to worry about.A typical modern canoe is rated at about 750 pounds and will handle much more.The explorers,trappers,traders,etc.used some canoes that would make ours look tiny.The weight in the bottom helps stabilize the canoe.Also a canoe is about the best thing for dragging weight across sand bars,etc.

[Free Trapper]

I just recalled that my wife has a metate in her garden I found years ago.It's about 100-110 pounds and nearly cubic sandstone.It was about to fall in the river from a cut bank.The only way I could find to get it out before it would fall in was on a small raft.About a three mile float was easy.Getting it up a steep muddy bank was the hard part.If I was worried about the weight of a stone on a bark canoe some willow branches underneath would distribute the weight.I was 16 when I found the metate and got it out alone but a canoe sure would have helped.

[sneakypete]

Its very "Lord of the Rings"-ish to imagine these guys journeying these distances. To what end?

To see what's there.

[babble-on]

I was born in the wrong millenium. The way another poster put it, "to see what's over the next hill" made me want to quit my job, leave the wife and kids with ample provisions, and just start walking. If my son were a little older he'd be good to take along, too. Although if we were gone for five years, he'd be ten by the time we got back and would have character and strength to last a lifetime, so maybe I'll take him. I'm definitely going to need a dog, too.

[crystalk]

If you do, you might try retracing the Kensington expedition from Hudson's Bay down into Minnesota. (Upstream on the Nelson R. (Ugh.))

They tell me these vast areas of Canada are little changed since 1362, and then see if you can really get a boat to float in the Red River to come southward to Fargo or so from Winnepeg.

Something tells me mosquitoes would be horrendous, though. Lots and lots of "Backwoods Off" will be required.

[Free Trapper]

For a fun cheap trip try a motor mount on a canoe.Most canoes are rated for about a 4 horse motor but I use 7 horse motors all the time.This makes for an easy trip if you're not used to paddleing and takes the ugh out of upstream.Most kids would love it.

[Free Trapper]

Are you familiar with Go Devils?Try godevil.com if not.Oldtown makes metal motor mounts and Osage makes wood or make your own.The different mounts will fit different types of canoes.I've used 2-10 horse but you want low weight motors.Older Tecumseh head outboards work best for me but any are fine if you balance the weight.A second motor on the right side will balance the weight and give you a spare,or if you lock it down straight forward and steer with the left you might want to get a pilots license.

[Ditter]

Strange & intresting. Thanks.

[okie01]

I'll support the notion that the stone, if it weighs only 220 lb, could readily be transported in a canoe.

Is there any history, though, of canoe "skin-and-frame" technology among the Vikings? Might they have travelled by dugout, instead. Or actually hewed logs and constructed a plank boat? A raft doesn't seem feasible, since the trip would be upstream.

In any case, transporting the stone via water from Lake Winnipeg up the Red to within fifty-or-so miles of Kensington doesn't seem insuperable.

Lugging it on a sled those last fifty miles would've been the hard part.

[crystalk]

If you think that is bad, a caller has suggested that not only did their wooden plank pinnace float in the Red River (which I have never seen, I live in Florida)...but that it was taken up the Buffalo River east of Fargo, then brought down a chain of lakes to Kensington and/in the Pomme de Terre (ie Potato?) River.

I would hate to have had to carry it, these sound like little more than prairie wet spots to me, but some are saying that the water table was a lot higher before the farms broke the land, and this was all just awash in those days.

Go figure.

[Free Trapper]

Vikings made many sizes of boats.They surely would have been familiar with skin boats from Ireland but the Indian canoes were nice for our waters and easy to portage.They took some larger boats into Russia where they had to portage,which would seem much harder than transporting one stone any number of miles.Now if you want to move the Heavener Stone by water or land I'm just going to bring a cold beer and watch.

[okie01]

")...but that it was taken up the Buffalo River east of Fargo, then brought down a chain of lakes to Kensington and/in the Pomme de Terre (ie Potato?) River."

The Ottertail would've gotten it closer than the Buffalo.

But, putting myself in their place, one would stick with the main stem until it became impassable. That would always afford the route of least overland travel. The main stem of the Red is the Bois de Sioux, which forms the Minnesota-Dakota border south of Fargo.

The Bois de Sioux heads in a swamp that it shares with the headwaters of the Minnesota River, just north of Traverse Lake on the Minnesota-South Dakota border. But I don't believe our voyageurs (or the Norse equivalent) would have followed the Bois de Sioux this far.

About 15 miles north of the swamp, the river forks. To a traveler headed upstream, the Rabbit River would be coming in from the left (east)while the Bois de Sioux continued south into the swamp. At this point, based on a topographical map, it appears that the Bois de Sioux turns turbid and boggy. But the Rabbit seems to have a clearly defined channel to the east.

Bois de Sioux-Rabbit River junction.

The channel doesn't last long, maybe ten miles, until the stream peters out somewhere southeast of Campbell, MN. But the Rabbit has pointed them straight for Kensington and, from there, it's 40 miles overland to the stone's resting spot.

If you'll take a look at the topo above and the adjacent quads to the east and south, you'll see that the area is criss-crossed with drainage ditches. Meaning a.) that it's very flat and b.) poorly drained. Consequently, in 1362, winter snowmelt and Spring floods would have left vast portions of this terrain under water, I betcha.

Accordingly, our intrepid venturers might've been able to float further than we thought...

[crystalk]

And maybe the spot where the stone was placed WAS an "island" of sorts, in a maze of land and water?...Curioser and curioser, said Alice.

But they were quite sure the Buffalo had been used, because of artifacts found around Cormorant Lake north of the stone's place of finding, and that if one headed due south from said Cormorant Lake, a string of lake-oids in(ending-in)the Pomme de Terre R. were supposed to bring them within a mile or less (a k) of the place of finding?

Interesting, I didn't suppose anyone would actually know much about such remote places.

[Free Trapper]

If it was an island of sorts,would a stone dropped by a glacier and worked in place make sense?