3 BIRDS with 1 STONE

Vikings   Vinland
Mandans
The Mississippi

and

The Kensington Runestone

Leif Ericson and ancient Viking explorers discovered northern Minnesota a thousand years ago.  A ship was sited in a small lake.  This is VINLAND and here a Viking ship became stranded after a great storm.  Here too, begins the MANDAN Indian nation.  Here is the real source of the Mississippi River Also near here was found a Runestone from early Norse explorers who were looking for those VIKINGS WHO HAD DISCOVERED AMERICA.

This site will present new evidence in solving three great mysteries. 

In 2005 while reading the diaries of Lewis and Clarks and the journey of discoveries trip west up the Missouri, I was amazed by a remark made by an Indian chief.  In North Dakota where the river turns west they made their winter camp in 1805 with the Mandan Indians and met Sheheke, chief of the Mandans.  While being questioned about where this mysterious tribe had come from, he said; our ship became stranded in a lake on a mountain top or island after a great flood or storm; I stopped and thought about a place in northern Minnesota that fit that description...

So three months and three books on the Mandans later, I found a mistake in a book on Sheheke that again led me to this same lake again.  And so here the real story begins and many great mysteries begin to unwind.  Here in this small lake the children of the first settlers told a story of how they found a ship in this lake when the lake which had been a swimming hole had dried up during the dry years of the late 1800's.The story had been scoffed at and almost lost and forgotten because this small lake is not accessible even by canoe and no ship could have ever gotten in to this lake....

Then with the help of a badger we found an earth home in the hillside and a beach that was 15 feet above the present day water level.  A few weeks later I would be out with my metal detector and walking the fields and in a moment of frustration and thinking how stupid I feel for thinking that after years and years of looking for Viking artifacts by Marion Dahm and many others that my chances of ever finding anything cool was almost nil.....  I had a beeping and found a small encrusted clump of iron.  After a month in a reverse electrolysis bath a 6 inch long Viking harpoon tip appeared.  Now I knew I was on to something.


Here in this small lake a ship of Vikings had become stranded and the birth of the Mandan Indian nation had begun.  Here a thousand years ago VIKINGS had landed in VINLAND and found the wild grapes and here too is the real source of the Mississippi River and evidence of the flood and a ten mile long rip in the earth where the water broke over the moraine and began carving a river valley...  Here the Vikings had discovered America and stayed, a thousand years ago, and near here too is the Kensington Runestone.

So as spring approaches, and when the ice goes off the lake, the search begins with 5 underwater cameras...  There is a Viking ship to find...

The whole story of the Mandans and the Vikings and the Great inland ocean and the storm that left them stranded in this lake and the stories of Lillie and the ship she had seen in the lake and all other discoveries will be posted here as they become available and all comments and questions are welcome.

(March 2006)

Spring and Summer 2006 Update

In April I spent 2 weeks on the lake and was able to look at a third of the lakes bottom but the water was getting cloudy and then the GPS would not record to the map in my laptop.  So I still will have to make a few more improvements before spring 2007.

At the Runestone convention I learnt of a mooring stone in east ottertail county.  After a month of going farm to farm I found it on the morning of the 4th of July.  Marion and Leland came to visit 2 days later and take a few photos and to document it too.  The stone was at the end of the driveway and was dug up years earlier.  It is located a mile from the old Wrightown store in Woodside township and is 4 miles upstream from the lake and my boat search site.  This is the first in this area and is at about 1450 feet or so.  The hole in the rock is three sided and an inch and a half wide and 4 inches deep and so the hole is the smaller of the two sizes of holes found in mooring stones.

Photo of Marion Dahm and Leland Peterson with mooring stone I found on the 4th of July, 2006.

While going farm to farm I also heard that there may be others south of my site.

Saddly then, Marion died from westnile virus two weeks after this photo was taken.

Also this summer a new quarry was being dug and is at about 1500 feet above sea level and on one of the two highest peaks in the area.  It is less than ten miles west from the lake.  Here near the top of the cut I found a beach again.  This was the high water mark of a great flood and the edge of a large shallow inland sea.

In October I drove rods down in a swampy shallow area on the south side of the lake and hit a large solid area at 4 feet underwater and muck.

More camera work is planned and this may be a good year to make wine again from the large amount of wild grape vines I have been finding along the way.