Happy is he who hath in himself
praise and wisdom in life;
for oft doth a man ill counsel get
when 'tis born in another's breast.
Håvamål 9
Wisdom for Wanderers and Counsel to Guests
Picture Gallery
- Building the Boat Shed
- Lofting, Plans and Templates
- Building the Keel
- Keel Raising Ceremony
- Hull Planks
- Building the Hull
- Unveiling Ceremony
- Launching Ceremony
- Sailing "Munin"
- Building the Oars
- Building the Shields
- Promoting the Project
- "Munin" Haulout May 2009
Other "Munin" Pictures
- "Munin's" Own Site
- Viking Art
- Flickr - Munin Search
- Flickr - Foxtongue
- Flickr - Russel Dock
- Venture Vancouver 1
- Venture Vancouver 2
About
"I counsel thee, Stray-Singer, accept my counsels,
they will be thy boon if thou obey'st them,
they will work thy weal if thou win'st them:
I pray thee be wary, yet not too wary,
be wariest of all with ale,
with another's wife, and a third thing eke,
that knaves outwit thee never."
Håvamål 130
The Counseling of the Stray-Singer
About the The Keel Raising Ceremony
Big day—big agenda
The Keel Raising Ceremony was held on Sunday September 10, 2000. We kicked it off at 12:15pm with over 80 people in attendance. Even in our sizeable 24x64 foot boat shed, we were comfortably crowded.
We had laboured valiantly the day before to spruce up the hall with our project posters about Vikings, Viking ships, maps and so on.
The red and white striped sail from our little ship at the Scandinavian Center made a great back drop as did the magnificent leather tapestry from the movie the Thirteenth Warrior. As an aside, we actually have quite a few props from the movie which was filmed here in BC.
After the ceremony and the formal part of the event, we retired to the patio deck for food and refreshments. The bar was open.
One of our project members from the Society of Creative Anachronisms or SCA for short. The SCA is a historical re-enactment group, had brought some mead, so we had occasion to drink a very fitting toast to our ship.
We made quite a lot of friends from SCA during the Midsummer Fest and several came out to join in our celebration in full costume. This lent a nice touch to the event as we have not made much progress outfitting the project members yet.
Of inauspicious beginnings, great things may still follow
The weather had been great all summer, but turned wet and miserable the week before our big do. We joked that we maybe we should mark the invitations "bring your own oar" and have the crowd row the boat shed once around the field for a taste of adventure.
But this is BC and if you worry too much about the weather, nothing gets done. So we carried on. In the end, the clouds lifted sufficiently Sunday morning to stop the rain and all was well.
New and old friends came to celebrate
Many new and old friends turned out to celebrate the important milestone with us. Several dignitaries graced us with their presence on this Sunday afternoon such as Fred Randall, the MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly for BC) for Burnaby/Edmonds, Stein Gudmundseth, Norwegian Consul General and Burnaby Counselors Barbara Der (Deputy Mayor) and Gary Begin.
All the Scandinavian countries were represented and we had just a grand old time.
Our indefatigable photographer was present and captured the historic moment for posterity.
