Key ideas: technical texts 8

Viking Navigation

1. The Vikings sailed the Scandinavian waters and beyond on sturdy and slender symmetrical boats. The boats, powered by oar and wind, were similar in some ways to today’s canoes, but bigger and bulkier. Boats were an essential part of Viking existence, as the Vikings utilized them for long-distance trade, exploration, military attacks, and colonization. But how could a culture, more than 10 centuries in the past, accurately traverse the oceans without the aid of modern navigational tools? The Vikings used what they had: nature. People today can learn a lot from these medieval mariners if they are ever to find themselves without the aid of GPS and paper maps.
2. The Vikings’ primary navigational tool was the sun. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. This is helpful knowledge in any part of the world. But, in the northern latitudes where the Vikings resided, they could also tell direction at noon (the sun would be due south) and at midnight (the sun would be due north).
3. Vikings also used a special crystal called sunstone to assist in navigation. The sun wasn’t always visible in the often foggy and overcast North Atlantic region. The Vikings found that sunstone could polarize light, and this helped them identify the location of the sun through clouds or fog. The sunstone became such an important instrument that many Vikings wore it on a string around their neck.
4. The ingenious Vikings found another natural navigational aid, which ultimately became the precursor to the modern magnetic compass: lodestone. Lodestone is a naturally occurring form of

   magnetite

   that demonstrates unique magnetic qualities. The Vikings realized that lodestone was magnetized, and if suspended, could point to the north. The Vikings crafted a process by which they would strike an iron needle on the lodestone and then insert it into straw and float it in a bowl of water. The floating needle would position itself in a north/south orientation.
5. Aside from these extraordinary natural gadgets, the Vikings also used personal experience from their own voyages and those of their predecessors. They knew the depths of the ocean in specific areas, and this could help them determine location. They sampled seabed composition to match up with previously determined landmarks. They knew when they saw certain birds and whales that they were close to certain regions of land. And, they observed that the presence of low-lying fog or cloud mass on the horizon indicated land. The shared nautical wisdom between generations ultimately shaped the expansive horizons for this seafaring empire.