Excerpt taken from Slate.at www.slate.msn.com

Norse by Norsewest
To hell with Christopher Columbus--and all other Easterners.

By Knute Berger
Knute Berger is editor and publisher of Eastsideweek, the alternative paper of the eastern suburbs of Seattle. Posted Wednesday, Sept. 25, 1996, at 4:30 p.m. PT

Earlier this summer, an out-of-town friend and I were taking in the Ballard Seafood Festival, an annual celebration of music, troll dolls, and pickled herring in the Seattle neighborhood that serves as Scandinavia's unofficial outpost.

Ballard, annexed by Seattle many years ago, maintains its culture and loyalties without much consideration for national or civic boundaries. Its residents, solid and conservative in look and outlook, are often referred to as "square heads," which suggests a stolid stupidity many associate with the Swedes, but all Scandinavian flags fly here. The kindly King Harald V of Norway visits every year or so to ensure that Ballard remains within the realm. The children grow strong by enduring the pain and suffering of having to eat lutefisk, the kind of dish that offers a challenge to the character, much like haggis for the Scots. Lutefisk is cod that is treated with lye and is transformed, in the process, into a gelatinous, fishy, white mass. When I was growing up, we had to eat it every Christmas eve. "No lutefisk--no gifts" was, no doubt, a Lutheran law.

As we strolled the festival, I mentioned to my friend that a statue of Leif Ericson stands guard at nearby Shilshole Bay. He gave me a sideways look. "Leif Ericson!" he sneered. "Did he ever come here?"

The question and the tone turned me snarky. Why the hell do I have to justify Leif Ericson? Did Christopher Columbus ever sleep in Columbus, Ohio? Did he ever reach the Columbia River or British Columbia? America and the Pacific Northwest are monuments to people who never came here, Amerigo Vespucci for one. Washington state is named for George. Mount Rainier is named for Peter Rainier, a British admiral and enemy of the United States who never sailed these waters. And the Strait of Juan de Fuca is named for a Greek navigator who likely never existed at all. And my friend questions Leif Ericson?

Seattle's ship traffic passes under the statue's gaze. Undoubtedly, it brings good luck to local seafarers, many of them named Thor, Einer, or Ole. But it is also a great symbol. When this bold figure of Ericson was unveiled in the 1960s, and later used in a U.S. postage-stamp design, it stood for the righting of one of history's great wrongs. Only Seattle had the guts to tell the truth, and to cut that truth in stone, by paying tribute to the real European "discoverer" of America and the people who explored and settled Vinland half a millennium before the Italian pretender acting for Spain.

My friend, sad to say, had revealed himself with his inquiry as a Vinland doubter, a man who has not read The Sagas, a man still waiting for more proof than contemporary maps, detailed written accounts, and carbon-dated archaeological evidence. In short, a typical American.

I am feeling less snarky and more cocky these days, however, because the answer to my friend's question might actually be closer to a "yes" than I ever expected. Ericson might not have slept here, but his Norse ancestors might have, you betcha.