Lonely Planet blog

It’s the time of year when Caribbean dreams consume a wide girth of North Americans seeking a break from chilling temperatures. That’s cool. But it reminds me once again, frustratingly, how little most of us actually know of pirates del Caribe. Much less what would have happened if they had ventured far north — with a saucy swagger, plus a time machine — to the year 1000 AD and faced down Eric the Red, or his son, off the shores of Viking settlements of present-day Newfoundland?

Movies never ask this crucial question, but I will. Pirates versus Vikings? Who wins?

For help I turned to travel — asking pirate and Viking experts at Moorhead, Minnesota’s Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center; Nassau, Bahama’s Pirates of Nassau museum; North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, NC; and the fascinating L’Anse Aux Meadows National Historic Site.

What do you think?

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