A Runestone That May Be North America’s Oldest Turns Up in a Canada Forest

Canada|A Runestone That May Be North America’s Oldest Turns Up in a Canada Forest

Two trees fell in the forest. Whether or not anyone heard, the fall eventually revealed runes below.

A stone carved with 255 runes had lain beneath the trees, long hidden by soil, moss and roots in a densely forested corner of Canadian wilderness. On the same stone, someone had carved an image of a boat with passengers.

Who carved it? When? Why? First a historian was summoned, then an archaeologist, and then an expert in runes. Finally, this month, they told the public about the discovery.

The runestone was found on private property in 2015, after the trees’ collapse exposed it again to the elements of northern Ontario. The carvings quickly raised the specter of Vikings — there is only one confirmed Viking settlement in North America, in Newfoundland — but investigation soon knocked that idea down. Nor was the stone a forgery, researchers said, like the Kensington Runestone of Minnesota, which scholars found to be a 19th-century hoax.

The Ontario runestone is “a remarkable find,” said Kristel Zilmer, a runologist at the University of Oslo who was not involved in the project. The stone, she said, “shows how such knowledge sometimes traveled with people, occasionally leaving behind finds like this one in rather unexpected places.”

Ryan Primrose, the archaeologist called to the site, near the town of Wawa, was among the surprised. “I had never expected to encounter a runestone during my career,” he said.