Thirty-five men made up the party and their leader was Leif Ericson. His purpose was to explore the coasts which his countryman, Biarni Heriulfson, had seen several years before, when in attempting to cross from Iceland to Greenland adverse winds had driven him to lands lying far to the south, possibly the island of Newfoundland. Leif was sailing in Biarni’s ship which he had bought for the voyage. The first shores sighted they conjectured to be those which Biarni had seen. They offered no attractions. The explorers called the country Helluland, the Land of Broad Stones, and passed on to Markland, the Land of Woods, which may have been Nova Scotia. A few more days brought them to an island where they noticed a peculiar sweetness in the dew. They may have been the first “Off Islanders” to land upon Nantucket, which is noted for its honey-dew. Following the coast they came to a place “where a river flowed out of a lake.” The region was inviting but the tide was low and the explorers were obliged to wait until high water before they could pass over the broad shallows into the lake beyond. Here they disembarked and erected temporary habitations which soon gave place to permanent dwellings when they determined to winter at that place. The new houses were easily constructed from the stones which abundantly covered the fields as they do even to this day. The place seemed a paradise to the hardy voyagers. Fish of many kinds leaped from the waters of the river and bay. Salmon larger than any they had before seen were especially abundant. Many wild animals roamed through the forests, as the deer wander through the woods and pastures of Rhode Island at the present time. The denizens of the frigid zone rightly imagined that cattle might easily find provender throughout the winter, in a climate so soft and mild. They experienced no severe cold; “no snow fell and the grass did not wither much.” They had chanced upon one of the mild winters with which we are occasionally favored. Three or four times in the last thirty years the Mount Hope Lands have known seasons when there were but few snow storms and those slight, seasons when in the sheltered nooks of the forest the grass did not wither much. The next party encountered “real New England weather,” and doubtless objurgated Leif’s party for romancing concerning the climate. “The equality in length of days was greater than in Iceland or Greenland. On the shortest day the sun remained above the horizon from 7.30 to 4.30.”[4]