Farfarers: Before the Norse FROM THE PUBLISHER
In this provocative bestseller, Farley Mowat challenges the conventional notion that the Vikings were the first Europeans to reach northern Canada. Mowat offers instead an unforgettable portrait of the Albans, a race originating from the island now known as Britain. Battered by repeated invasions from their aggressive neighbours — Celt, Roman and Norse — the Albans boarded seaworthy, skin-covered boats and fled west. Their search for safety, and for the massive walrus herds on which their survival depended, took them first to Iceland, then to Greenland, and, finally, to the land now known as Newfoundland and Labrador.
Skillfully weaving together clues gathered from forty years of research, Mowat presents a fascinating account of a forgotten history. The Farfarers affirms Mowat's status as one of Canada's most powerful chroniclers.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
A veteran investigator of early European voyages to North America, Mowat (Westviking) has conjured up a vision of pre-Viking settlement by a people he calls the Albans. Originating in what is now Scotland, Mowat's Albans were displaced in stages between about 700 and 1000 A.D., first to Iceland and Greenland, and finally to the western coast of Newfoundland. The author sees the Albans as driven westward by two forces: the search for valuables such as sealskin and walrus tusk, and the remorseless pressure of Viking raiders. To support his thesis, Mowat presents what scant evidence exists-mainly, stone constructions, like tower beacons and foundations for shelters, which Mowat believes cannot be attributed to the Norse or to native inhabitants of Greenland or Atlantic Canada, and which resemble stonework found in the Orkney Islands. On this basis, Mowat accepts that the Albans existed and sets out to imagine what their migrations were like. Scattered throughout the book in italicized passages are stories set in that era, telling how the Albans might have explored their new surroundings and survived, even prospered, in the Arctic. The Albans lost their separate identity, Mowat believes, by merging into the aboriginal population of Newfoundland. This account rests on informed speculation, as Mowat explicitly acknowledges, and is not intended as a formal exposition of all the evidence for and against the author's thesis. The book is best enjoyed as a richly detailed and imaginative reconstruction of how a long-vanished European people may have been the first of their kind to venture into the New World. Illus. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Mowat's 1960's book, Westviking: The Ancient Norse Vikings in Greenland and North America, first advanced the now-widely held belief that the Norse visited North America five centuries before Columbus and had settlements for a time on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Now Mowat returns to argue that before the Norse got to North America, and as early as the 700s, a pre-Indo-European people whom he calls "the Albans" had already been there. They fled their settlements in Scotland, he argues, to escape Viking slave-raiders--but they also went in search of walrus ivory tusks which were then highly prized in Europe. He supports his thesis with bits of Norse sagas, the chronicles of Irish monks, and his own archaeological finds. Some archaeologists dismiss Mowat's Alban theory as lacking in evidence--but whether he's correct or not, large academic libraries will want to have a copy of this controversial text.--Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., CUNY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Internet Book Watch - Internet Book Watch
In The Farfarers: Before The Norse, author and historian Farley Mowat asserts that an Indo-European people he calls "The Alban" preceded the Norse discovery of the North American continent by several centuries. The Alban were fleeing the Norse occupation of Scotland, as well as the Shetland and Orkney Islands, and in part, they were in search of walrus ivory as well. Throughout The Farfarers: Before The Norse, iconoclastic historian Mowat skillfully blends fictional vignettes of Alban life into a thoughtful, archaeological and historical records based scholarly reconstruction of a long-forgotten history of death-dealing warships, scanty food supplies, long cold journeys across the treacherous night sea into an unknown land. The Farfarers: Before The Norse is informative, challenging, controversial, entertaining, and thoroughly recommended reading!
Tony Gibbs - Islands
Mowat's assertiveness is at full strength in this provocative book, and he makes a fascinating case that may well have sence behind it.
Nellie Heitman - Foreword
In his unerringly superlative writing, Mowat is once again standing the
archaeological world on end. Almost thirty-five years after releasing his controversial theory that the Norse were the first Europeans to discover the North American continent (Westviking, 1965), Mowat has pieced together enough
evidence to suggest that he was wrong. Not wrong in terms of the dates and events of the Norse, but in saying the Norse were the first Europeans. In The Farfarers, he contends that a people whom their contemporaries called Albans-natives of the Scottish Highlands-journeyed to the North American continent before (and partially because of) the Norse.
Describing the archeological enigmas of ancient stone foundations and massive stone cairns found in the Canadian Arctic he investigated in 1966, Mowat piques one's interest with just enough details before turning aside, stating "telling the tale backwards as it actually unravelled is not the way the old story tellers would have done it. They always began at the beginning." He does; starting with the first of many historical vignettes about a people who have built a vessel named "Farfarer" and the logical steps of development to bring
about the first boats. This in turn, Mowat theorizes, allowed people to settle the northern reaches of Britain and survive in an otherwise inhospitable place-mainly because they could sustain themselves on the bounty of the surrounding waters.
From here, Mowat describes an interesting cause and effect course of events: trade expeditions to southern areas resulted in the harvesting of the much-in-demand walrus tusks in order to obtain prized items such as bronze tools and exotic jewelry. When walrus became scarce off the shores of Orkney and Shetland Islands, the Albans went westward to the shores of Ireland and, after a time, followed the flight of migratory birds to what is now Iceland. The Albans did not migrate, but rather remained at their homes in northern Britain. The men would sail to their new hunting grounds, collect tusks, hides and fat for fuel at home and return home before continuing south to trade or
having traders come north. Norse invaders, however, came to plunder and pillage the British Isles, forcing the Northern Islanders-the Albans-to flee to the only area available: Iceland. From here, trade continued with continental European merchant mariners until the Norse looked further west for more plunder, pushing the Albans westward again. In due succession, the Albans would flee first to Greenland, then onward to Labrador and later, in search of new hunting grounds and a more secure home away from the westward-seeking Norse, to Newfoundland.
The latter part of the story focuses on following to conclusion several lines of thought developed earlier. Mowat once again draws on scant evidence to conclude the following: The Norse failed to establish themselves in Labrador and Newfoundland because wary Albans, Tunits and Beothuks were better prepared to defend their land against further Norse invasions. A 300-year "gap" in Greenland's Christianity occurred because of the attack of the southern settlement by both the anti-theocratic settlement to the north and a declining interest in Greenland by Norway. It is only dealing with the "disappearance" of
Beothuk and Tunit cultures as well as the people of Alba-in-the-West that Mowat is "sufficiently confident of [his suppositions] to dispense with the usual continuous barrage of qualifications." What he logically concludes is that these different cultures did not disappear, but instead intermingled with newcomers to create the new "native" populations of the eastern regions of Canada.
Throughout this captivating work, Mowat strikes an interesting balance in describing his own exploratory journeys, the physical evidence found in various locations, the scant references found in historical documents and his own historical vignettes which bring the story to life. The over all effect gives the reader a logical historical framework as well as a clear picture of what
Mowat believes occurred. Refreshingly, Mowat is first to admit (several times throughout the course of the book, in fact), that what he has written has been pieced together loosely from a dearth of historical writings-and these from later time periods-which only allude to the presence of the Albans. "The plain fact is that my book makes no pretence at being history in the academic sense. It is the story of a vanished people: their successes, failures, and ultimate fate. I believe it to be a true story."
What a story! After more than thirty years of research, his theory of the Albans flies in the face of the now conventionally accepted belief-ironically developed by Mowat himself that the Norse were first to cross over the Western Ocean. Those who know his writings will surely find The Farfarers the most intriguing and fascinating work that Mowat has ever put forward. For those who have never had the pleasure of engrossing themselves in an historical account
by Mowat, an unforgettable experience in learning history in an entertaining way awaits them.
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