The wood planking creeks as we pull hard on the oars against a stiff outgoing tide.

Our ship riding a swell towards a rocky coastline rising ahead.

Towering cliffs spotted with green are punctuated by waterfalls, inlets, the opening of what might be a small bay.

In the waters around us, teeming schools of fish shimmer on the surface as birds dive into them.

Nearby, two plumes of water aspirate as great whales exhale from below.

A rainbow arks through the mist.

scanning the shoreline for a suitable landing spot, we head for a break in the rocky outcroppings,

where we see an inviting blue-black calm beyond the huge boulders.

From all we've seen today, everywhere we've sailed, it seems certain this land is without

inhabitants.

Can you imagine, a world far from our own, a new land, a warmer land,

rich with forests, open spaces and abundant wildlife? At home we will boast of our success. This voyage to a

new realm, a new world, which we call our own. road. Hello everybody. I'm Don Wildman and this is American History Hit.

When we were young in grade school, those of us of a certain age learned that Christopher Columbus discovered America in

1492. Never mind the man never set foot on the mainland, but only on sandy islands

in the Caribbean. Never mind that for more than 10,000 years mankind was already

here developing sophisticated societies across continents north and south. Turns

out the voyages of Christopher Columbus were mostly about Christianization and the coming

colonial incursions of the Spanish Empire. Historically, Columbus's so-called discovery is really

a whitewash on the darker realities of conquest and domination.

Nonetheless, it was the notion of discovery that stuck for us youngsters,

and so it was, until we received the boggling news that it was actually the Vikings who were here first.

...