Norse

 Here we have the product of a collaboration between the Museum and the community of Arctic Bay in the far north. The remains of a man who died 800 years ago were studied, along with the tools buried with him. The tools have been reproduced, the way he would have looked has been recreated, and the remains and original tools have been returned to the community.

He's been given a name: Nuvumiutaq.

A millennium ago, first contact was made in the New World. Norse sailors under Leif Erikson made landfall in North America, where Vikings made at least one confirmed settlement for a few years at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Where there was one, there had to be more.

Artifacts of the time are seen here. The three effigies in the display case are by indigenous tribes of the coast dating back to the period. They traditionally depicted themselves with no features, but a third, at top, features someone with facial features and a cross on the chest.

Wood chips and slag fragments also offer evidence of the time of the Vikings in Canada.

In the High Arctic, there are even traces of the Vikings, though it is not known if the people of the North had direct contact with them, or salvaged items from shipwrecks or traded items with tribes to the south.