The Gokstadboat Project

We know the Vikings must have been very skilled sailors. The stories in Erik the Reds saga about Leiv Erikssons discovery of the Vinlands does give us an idea of how it must have been to cross the Atlantic for several weeks in the open Vikingships,  with very primitive conditions on board. The crew had to sleep and eat on the open deck, with only the sail to protect them from strong winds and icing cold from the rough ocean. The trip was originally meant to head for Greenland, but was driven off course and ended up in a land not known, with wheat fields growing wild and grapeviness. Leiv Eriksson had discovered Newfoundland! The story tells as much that the discovery of America was not made by Christopher Columbus - as it tells about the conditions of land discoveries in the Vikingages.

We can ask ourselves were the Vikings just plain fishermen and farmers, who lived a harsh life in the cold of the Northern Europe - and who therefore were looking for a better place to live? Or were they warriors, imperialists and conquerors driven by extreme needs? And we can ask ourselves what practices and understandings of navigation, wind, geography and sailingtechniques did the Vikings have - and how did they come to them? And can we ever understand their understandings?

The Gokstad discovery, where the Gokstadship and the three wooden færingboats was found broken in pieces - is together with the Osebergship and the Thuneship our main archeological sources for understanding the sailing skills of the norwegian Vikings. The Gokstadship was reconstructed by Fredrik Johansen in 1930, as well as the biggest and the smallest of the boats. The Vikingshipmuseum at Bygdøy was built for presenting the new heritage that was so important for the building of the norwegian national identity at the time.

But the third Gokstad boat remained in 250 bits and pieces in the museums storeroom.

The Gokstadboat Project was developed in the years from 2002 to 2005, marking 125 years after the excavation of the Gokstadship in 1880. This project reconstructed the third Gokstadboat - by way of reconstructing the process of boatbuilding. The Gokstadboatproject put emphasis on building an understanding of the sailingskills of the Vikings. By focusing on the boat and the artifact - and by trying to understand the skills, knowledges and the understandings that the Vikings build on when they constructed their ships and boat, as well as when they sailed the them - new understanding of the Vikings is seeked.