Voyager
B Y E M M A YA R D L E Y
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P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U RT E S Y O F V I K I N G
W H AT YO U T H I N K YO U K N O W A B O U T V I K I N G S I S O N LY H A L F T H E S T O RY.
“You may think the Viking is a savage warrior coming to kill you and take your things—and you’d be right,” says Malcolm Dickson, an interpretive guide at Njardarheimr Viking Village in western Norway. “But next time, I’m coming back as a salesman. I’ll be building trading relationships all the way to Miklagard [what is now Istanbul].” Dickson, a bearded man wearing layers of finely embroidered woolen clothing and a brown sheepskin cloak, speaks of Vikings in the first person because he doesn’t just work in Njardarheimr, a living cultural and historical community nestled in the narrow valley floor of Nærøyfjord in western Norway—he lives there. He’s one of forty-eight “Vikings” who’ve lived, partor full-time, in this authentically reconstructed village since it opened in April 2017. As he leads a group of visitors past beautifully handcrafted houses topped 102 | M A R CH 2019
with ornately carved dragon heads and grass roofs, he wants to be clear about a popular misconception. “There is one thing that you will never, ever find here in the real Viking age—helmets with horns on them!” he says with a growl. The visit to Njardarheimr is part of an onshore day excursion off of Viking Sun, a brand-new, state-ofthe-art ship that serves as my home for fifteen days on Viking’s comprehensive Viking Homelands itinerary, which begins in Stockholm, includes ports of call along the Baltic Sea, and ends in its home port of Bergen, Norway. And though the stop at Njardarheimr is perhaps the most authentic Viking experience on the trip, the entire itinerary serves to give guests a fuller understanding of the history of these Scandinavian boatbuilders, farmers, navigators, and artisans.
