The New World

 This display case features carvings of people. At bottom are two typical Inuit carvings of themselves. The figure at top is thought to be European, likely a Norseman, found at a site on Baffin Island.

Scattered through the Arctic are hints of the Vikings, whether directly there or items acquired in trade.

L'Anse aux Meadows, which confirms the Viking presence in North America, offers up physical evidence like wood chips and slag metal.

Hundreds of years later, more Europeans would follow in their path. The fall of Constantinople and the collapse of trade routes, the decline of offshore fisheries, and other factors led to countries looking to the westward ocean and what laid beyond.

Fishing and whaling became a big thing off the East Coast after the travels of Giovanni Caboto, sailing for the English as John Cabot in 1497 brought back stories of the potential wealth of the new world.

Some very different ways of fishing can be seen in these artifacts, from hooks to jars.

Indigenous peoples and Europeans had very different initial impressions of each other.

This is a model of the galleon San Juan de Pasajes, which sank off Newfoundland in the 1500s.

Whaling was a hard life.

For the First Peoples of North America, nothing would ever be the same again.