So, they came into Hudson Bay, to the SW shore, up the rivers to Lake Winnipeg, then South, against the current all the way UP the Red River, all the way to the SD / ND border and were moving EAST or South or SE..
Actually, if they made it all the way to the headwaters, they actually came almost straight East from there, to where they buried the Kensington stone..
Which on foot, would probably be about 10 days journey..
If the travel was done during the spring, they may have been able to take some advantage of the massive flood plain to travel..
Spring flooding would also explain their description of burying their marker on an island
That part of Minnesota is fairly flat, and dotted with many lakes.. not quite as much as farther north and east, but still well covered..
Sunken Civ's post in #31 notes that 8 returned, in 1364, to Sweden..
Considering those 8 survived and returned, one would expect that colonization of some sort would have occurred...
Reports of a land that vast and rich would have driven people crazy with desire..
There should have been veritable flotillas of Swedish and Norwegian ships headed to America (Vinland)..
Yet, this didn't happen...
Just more conjecture, more questions..
"Considering those 8 survived and returned, one would expect that colonization of some sort would have occurred... Reports of a land that vast and rich would have driven people crazy with desire.."
Considering the message of despair they left for us on the Kensington runestone, that doesn't seem in any way likely. Another problem that arose was the cooling off -- the Little Ice Age -- which led to the abandonment of the Greenland colonies.