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While digging in the ruins of a centuries-old building on Baffin Island (map), far above the Arctic Circle, a team led by Sutherland, adjunct professor of archaeology at Memorial University in Newfoundland and a research fellow at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, found some very intriguing whetstones. Wear grooves in the blade-sharpening tools bear traces of copper alloys such as bronze -- materials known to have been made by Viking metalsmiths but unknown among the Arctic's native inhabitants. Taken together with her earlier discoveries, Sutherland's new findings further strengthen the case for a Viking camp on Baffin Island. "While...

Vikings - or perhaps other Europeans - may have set up housekeeping and traded with Inuit 1,000 years ago near today's community of Kimmirut. That's the picture of the past emerging from ancient artifacts found near Kimmirut, where someone collected Arctic hare fur and spun the fur into yarn and someone else carved notches into a wooden stick to record trading transactions. Dorset Inuit probably didn't make the yarn and tally sticks because yarn and wood weren't part of Inuit culture at that time, said Patricia Sutherland, an archeologist with the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Other artifacts from the area,...

It has often been cited as one of the classic examples of how changes in climate have shaped human history. Circa the year 985, Erik the Red led 25 ships from Iceland to Greenland, launching a Norse settlement there and giving the vast ice continent the name "Greenland." Within just a few decades, the Norse -- sometimes also dubbed Vikings -- would make it to Newfoundland as well. They maintained settlements of up to a few thousand people in southwest Greenland for several centuries, keeping livestock and hunting seals, building churches whose ruins still stand today, and sending back valuable...

For the past 50 years—since the discovery of a thousand-year-old Viking way station in Newfoundland—archaeologists and amateur historians have combed North America's east coast searching for traces of Viking visitors. It has been a long, fruitless quest, littered with bizarre claims and embarrassing failures. But at a conference in Canada earlier this month, archaeologist Patricia Sutherland announced new evidence that points strongly to the discovery of the second Viking outpost ever discovered in the Americas.

A Canadian university is advertising five research positions, but applicants must be a part of the LGBTQ+ community to apply. Memorial University of Newfoundland posted five new Canada Research Chair (CRC) positions that are open to current employees of the liberal arts school, but there's a catch. In order to be eligible to apply, the applicant has to be a member of an equity group, including the 2SLGBTQIA+ people, a woman, Indigenous, a racialized person, or a disabled, according to the job postings viewed by the Daily Mail. The five-to-seven-year gig, which pays up to $200,000 CAD ($145,000 USD) annually,...

The Progressive Conservatives will form a majority government in Newfoundland and Labrador ...

The deadly Titan submersible disaster that raised global alarms about private deep-sea tourism was the result of preventable safety failures and deliberate efforts to avoid oversight, according to a U.S. Coast Guard report released Tuesday. All five people inside the Titan died in a catastrophic implosion as it descended to the wreck of the Titanic off Canada, and the dayslong search for the missing vessel grabbed international headlines. The Coast Guard convened its highest level of investigation in the aftermath. The Titan was owned by OceanGate, a private company based in Washington state. The operator of the submersible, OceanGate head...

There is no road rage quite like backroad rage. The story of the failed prosecution of Alphonsus O’Connell involved allegations of many of the familiar elements of road rage, and not just by him, but also his alleged victim: honking, tailgating, brake checking, forcing someone off the road, brandishing a firearm. It also had vastly conflicting accounts about what actually happened that call to mind the old joke that anyone driving faster than you is a maniac and anyone slower is an idiot. The fact that it happened on a dirt road in the wild Newfoundland woods with no witnesses...

On this day in 1985 I climbed aboard an ill fated Arrow Air DC8 Stretch at McChord AFB with a fresh gamma globulin shot in my ass (if you've ever had one you know) and 10 inches of snow on the ground, embarking on an adventure that would be both fun, exciting, and tragic. We spent 35 hours on that POS, several landings for re-fueling but they never let us off, and finally landed in Cairo. It was over 100 degrees in the shade... had there been any shade. They marched us into the terminal where we were fed a...

White blobs have been washing up on the beaches of Newfoundland recently, sparking an investigation by Canadian officials. They have been described by resident Stan Tobin as doughy - "like someone had tried to bake bread and done a lousy job" - with an odour reminiscent of vegetable oil. Beachcombers on the southern tip of the Canadian province began reporting the strange substance around early September. ... Photos of the substance began cropping up on a beachcombers group online, prompting speculation that it was fungus or mold, palm oil, paraffin wax or even ambergris - a rare and valuable substance...

Hurricane Ernesto is closing in on the strongest strike on Bermuda in almost four years, then could brush parts of Newfoundland, Canada, early next week after its flooding rain and damaging winds hammered Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles. Ernesto will remain well off the U.S. East Coast, but beachgoers will need to be aware of its swells generating a threat of dangerous rip currents. C​urrent status: Category 2 Hurricane Ernesto is centered just over 200 miles south-southwest of Bermuda and is moving north-northeast. Ernesto's scope of strong winds continues to grow. Hurricane-force winds now extending up to 75 miles...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Police in Newfoundland say patrol officers were assaulted Thursday by a "very irate male" wielding a block of cheese. A media release from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary says the incident occurred when officers responded to a disturbance at a residence in central St. John's, N.L., at around 9 p.m. The release says they encountered an angry man who then assaulted the officers with "a block of cheese." Police say they arrested the man, and charged him with assault, assaulting a police officer and breach of probation. He was taken to a lockup facility in St. John's...

A British Airways Boeing 777-200ER flying from New York-JFK to London-Gatwick (LGW) was forced to divert to St John’s in Newfoundland, Canada after one of the pilots became incapacitated. The flight, with flight number BA 2272, departed New York-JFK at 21:54 on March 14, 2024, for the seven-hour and 50-minute flight back to London, where it was due to land at 08:05 the following morning. However, after around three hours of flying eastbound and with the aircraft cruising at 40,000ft and 440 nautical miles northeast of St. John’s, the crew declared an emergency, reporting that one of the flight crew...

As American scientists prepare to announce the location of the remains of Endeavour, a battle is expected over whether Britain, the United States or Australia gets the wreck of James Cook's famed ship. A team of marine archaeologists from Australia and the US said they believe they may have found the resting place of the ship – used by the British explorer on a voyage of discovery to Australia in 1768 - 25 years after beginning their search. They are expected to announce on Friday 'one or two' sites in Newport Harbour in Rhode Island, where the Endeavour was scuttled...

Breakthrough evidence likely reveals the final resting place of the HMS Endeavour. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nearly two years after an Australian research team made the claim that a Rhode Island shipwreck was Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour, the team says they have more evidence to back up their assertion. A Rhode Island-based research group originally said it was too premature to call the shipwreck Cook’s vessel. New findings regarding the pump well and bow further point to this ship in fact being HMS Endeavour. Residents of New England and those with British ties are once again in a scuffle. This time, the debate...

Wood from three different trees cut by Vikings found at L'Anse aux Meadows been precisely dated to 1021 CE - 1,000 years ago this year. The Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, located at the tip of Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula, was discovered in the 1960s, but has never been precisely dated. Previous estimates about when the Viking crossed the Atlantic and made their way to present day Newfoundland and Labrador have been based on Norse sagas and radiocarbon dating that typically has an error margin of about 50 years. The best estimates put their arrival at around 990 at...

The hull of the Titan vessel "showed signs of cyclic fatigue," according to a January 2020 interview with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who is aboard the missing vessel. Rush told Geekwire that due to that stress, the hull rating was downgraded to a depth of 3,000 meters, 800 meters short of the Titanic's depth. In a December 2019 slideshow that appears to have been presented to the Deep Submergence Science Committee of the University — National Oceanographic Laboratory System, OceanGate listed the depth capability of the Titan as 3,000 meters. But in 2021, OceanGate announced that Titan, not another vessel,...

The desperate search for a missing submersible that vanished during a mission to explore the wreck of the Titanic continued on Tuesday as more information about those onboard came to light. The submersible, which is part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour that offers passengers a once-in-a-lifetime experience to explore the Titanic wreckage, went missing on Sunday after losing contact with the research vessel Polar Prince. British billionaire and owner of Action Aviation Hamish Harding was among the five people onboard the vessel, along with prominent Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood, and his son, Suleman. The other two people onboard have yet...

A frantic marine search is underway for a missing tourist submersible which has not been seen since it launched to take five people to the Titanic wreckage yesterday morning. The Boston Coastguard and Canadian Coastguard are both now looking for the missing vessel that is operated by tour company OceanGate Expeditions. The wreckage of the iconic ship sits 12,500ft- 2.5 miles - underwater around 370 miles from Newfoundland, Canada. OceanGate Expeditions is thought to be the only company that offers the tours. As of 1pm Monday, the sub had just 72 hours of oxygen left, according to the US Coast...

A tourist submersible taking groups to look at the Titanic wreckage has gone missing. The Boston Coastguard is now looking for the missing vessel. The wreckage of the iconic ship sits 12,500ft- 2.5 miles - underwater around 370 miles from Newfoundland, Canada. It's unclear how many people are on board and which company is responsible for it. OceanGate Expeditions is one of the only companies that offers the tours. Tickets cost up to $250,000.