Volume I of the Canadian Centenary Series
Now available as e-books for the first time, the Canadian Centenary Series is a comprehensive nineteen-volume history of the peoples and lands which form Canada. Although the series is designed as a unified whole so that no part of the story is left untold, each volume is complete in itself.
Professor Oleson rediscovers the journeys of the Norse people from Iceland towards Arctic Canada, five hundred years before Columbus’ exploits. These Christian Europeans settled with Indigenous Canadians, building stone settlements, trapping and exporting the prized white falcon and polar bear to the courts of medieval Europe, and producing the unique Thule people, ancestors of the modern Inuit. In fact, Professor Oleson’s research has traced the tall white “Tunnit” people of Inuit mythology to these Norse settlers. Despite the eventual fading of contact with Europe, the Norse had built an irrefutable North Atlantic route which explorers and traders of the 17th century would follow in their pursuit of the riches of Asia and their creation of a lasting bond with Europe.
First published in 1963, Tryggvi J. Oleson’s important contribution to the Canadian Centenary Series is available here as an e-book for the first time.