Amazing Viking Turf House Tour – Stunning Green Building!
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In this video we’re excited to share the re-created 1000-year-old Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. We visited the site last fall and had we really enjoyed learning more about the settlement, but also about the traditional construction techniques they used for the turf dwellings and workshops.
The turf houses are built with timber frames that are load bearing, and walls that are built with peat bricks that have been cut and dried from a nearby bog. Each wall actually has two layers of the bricks, with layer of gravel sandwiched in the middle to help drain any moisture before it infiltrates to the interior of the structure.
It’s incredible that the Vikings were able to build such beautiful and functional structures with limited building materials, and in such a harsh environment.
Another thing that we found really neat that didn’t have anything to do with the structures was the fact that the bog not only provided peat for building, but bog iron they could use to create nails and other hardware they needed to repair their ships.
If you’re interested, here’s a link to our longer, more in-depth video about an Icelandic turf house:
And here’s a link where you can learn more about the L’Anse aux Meadows historic Viking settlement in Newfoundland:
Thanks for watching!
Mat & Danielle
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VIDEO CREDITS
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Music & Song Credits:
All music in this video was composed, performed, and recorded by Mat of Exploring Alternatives.
Editing Credits:
Mat and Danielle of Exploring Alternatives
Filming Credits:
Mat of Exploring Alternatives
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Hey Everyone! Thanks for watching 🙂
If you want to learn more about turf houses, check out this video we made in Iceland: https://youtu.be/_7JFwLyrdJw
Wonder if the schools are still teaching the kids that Columbus discovered North America ? Wonder how many American's know about this site in Newfoundland ?
Wonder how many American's know where Newfoundland is or what it is ?
Wonder why I am saying this ?
Anyhow cool house thanks for uploading and explaining the construction
us vikings are very smart we take what we have and build what we need
The layered wall design to block moisture and provide insulation is genius. I wonder how long it took them to figure it out? We’ll probably never know.
People are trying to make earthbag and cob houses breathable yet wateeproof. Wouldnf doing thebthick walls with gravel in the middle do that?
genial. Muchas gracias por mostrar tan fabulosas casas nórdicas. Saludos desde Uruguay. Vikingø Celtå
Thank you for the brief. Safe travels, guys.
Two questions I have is of those that have a dugout construction as in when you step through the door to go inside the ground floor drops a few feet, how do they keep that from flooding during heavy rain? And also as far as the roof vent for the fire smoke to escape from when it's raining do they have some sort of hatch or cover to keep the water from coming through the vents and getting the inside of the house wet and muddy?
Amazed at the inventive double walled houses.So the vikings didnt just use their swords &dicks
I'd love to live in a house like this like a summer house! Only with more modern ways of building
God is Good
so much great reference material for my art. thank you
I blew my load in that chicks face last weekend.
love it. keep going and showing these beautiful, organic, primitive, social dwellings.
I hope you guys got to go just a few kms further North up the island – it's about the most beautiful and magical place I've ever been. I found these turf houses to be quite spooky, but the whole park and area is so incredibly peaceful. Time stops at L'Anse Aux.
this is AWESOME. love the way people use to live back in the days
hello friend, how are you ?
You need to visit Maramures in northern Romania,for houses made from natural materials
How did they keep the roof supporting wood from rotting? Very cool video
why didn't you share some of that build technique.. that would have been more interesting than tell us what a nice time you had there.
This is my Dream House! A wife and a few kids… Perfect.
As a kid a grew up like this but inside the house we had a woodstove made out of mud or something. I will never go back to live like this. Believe it or not in some parts of the world people still live like this and it's a damn hard life.