Door to the North: A Saga of 14th Century America by Elizabeth Coatsworth.
Canoeing With the Cree: A 2250-mile Voyage from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay by Eric Sevareid.

It’s always fun when your reading accidentally and serendipitously coincides, and one books informs and talks to another. I read Canoeing With the Cree, journalist Eric Sevareid’s account of his youthful journey, along with a friend Walter C. Port, from the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling to the Hudson Bay, by canoe. The two boys, inspired by Kipling, inexperienced at canoeing and at camping, ages seventeen and nineteen respectively, traveled over 500 miles in a canoe called the Sans Souci (without care). It actually took some care and a lot of work and perseverance.

This epic journey by canoe took place in 1930; the book was published in 1935. It was the first time an all-water trip had ever been made from Minneapolis to the North Atlantic. “The newspaper stories that Sevareid wrote on this trip launched his distinguished journalism career, which included more than a decade as a television correspondent and commentator on the CBS Evening News.”

So, I read this true adventure story, and then I thought I’d try a change of pace and read a book of historical fiction about 14th century Norsemen in Iceland and Greenland, Door to the North by Elizabeth Coatsworth. Little did I know that my 14th century explorer missionaries, Christian Vikings, would end up in the same general part of the country as my twentieth century canoe paddlers. Hudson Bay and Lake Winnipeg and the Red River (One of the few rivers in the world that flows north) were recognizable by the descriptions that the author gives despite their lack of English names.

The Norwegian/Swedish expedition, sent out by King Magnus Eirikson in 1355 was charged with inspecting the Norse settlements in Greenland which had long been neglected and on their own. In Elizabeth Coatsworth story, the inspectors find one of the Greenland settlements has disappeared, so they travel west to look for the lost settlers and to make sure that they are still true to the Christian faith wherever they have moved. This quest brings the expedition to the shores of North America where they see many wonders: Skraelings (Native Americans), buffalo, tornadoes, and more, including the aforementioned bodies of water. Coatsworth bases her story in part on the discovery of the Kensington Runestone, which Wikipedia, at least, says was probably a hoax. But then again, who knows?

Both books were quite fascinating, and I’m glad I read them together. I am tempted to send a copy of each one to my relatives in South Dakota, since they have done some canoeing and since they live quite near the country where the two narratives intersect. If you have any interest in Minnesota/Great Lakes/Manitoba history or Vikings or the Mandan or Cree Indians or Norsemen in North America, then both of these books will be quite fascinating reading.