THE KENSINGTON RUNESTONE: Commentary and Speculation by Bob Voyles

          Hjalmar R. Holand convinced himself and many of his followers that the many authentic medieval Scandinavian stoneholes to be found in this region of Minnesota were left-overs from the Paul Knutsen search party looking for "Lost Greenlanders."  He extended his mistake to include some iron weapons and other iron objects he attributed to being left behind by this unsubstantiated search party. Here in this WWII-era book, Holand shows and describes many of the stoneholes and iron objects found over the years in Minnesota.  Unfortunately, he ascribed stoneholes as being for mooring boats, which is an untenable conclusion, based on the topography of the landscape.  The watery landscape is currently about what it was like several hundred years ago, so obviously, the many stoneholes in Minnesota were made for other reasons--which I won't go into here.  Suffice to say that Holand was wrong about what the purpose was for this old tool seen abo...

  (This commentary was published in Alexandria's Echo Press on July 19th, 2020, without the photos) Marker Plate for Kensington Runestone Contains Inaccuracies By Robert Voyles, Minnetonka, MN This seems to be a suitable season to opine over "public symbols" from the past, so I thought I might add in my own two cents' worth over the worthiness or unworthiness of a particular local bronze marker plate. The marker plate is self-dated to 1948 and was erected on Runestone Hill to commemorate the finding spot of the Kensington Runestone. But, I submit that there are some serious flaws in the message on the marker-plaque, flaws that distort an otherwise seemingly truthful and orderly historical account of the 1362 medieval excursion into Minnesota by a band of Swedes and Norwegians. The lingering question in my mind is over what to do with the inaccurate — and therefore, offensive — cement and bronze monument. I'm what you might call a "KRS message purist," me...

This blog post is about a puzzling occurrence involving stoneholes chiseled into rocks, I believe in both the pioneering days of the late 1800s and in medieval times, perhaps as early as the 12th century.  This multiple stonehole-making happened near the border of Minnesota and South Dakota, near the town of Appleton, in Minnesota.  It is my firm belief that the stoneholes were chiseled out to mark a spot of earth along a ridgeline directly south of the Pomme de Terre River, a river that empties into the Minnesota River, not far from where the Minnesota river begins near the bottom of Big Stone Lake.  Significantly, the Pomme de Terre River reaches the farthest north of any river discharging into the Minnesota River.  This is important because I think the Norse Code-stone may possibly have been created to indicate an attempted medieval Scandinavian land-claim, and placing the seemingly encoded stonehole rocks by the Pomme de Terre River might have been inte...

This posting is about solving a mystery.  By putting many clues together, I believe I have discovered where the "Lake With Two Skerries" referred to in the inscription carved into the KRS is located.  Much of the material contained in this blog presentation was provided to the Minnesota Historical Society a few short years ago, where it is presently archived within the KRS documentation holdings. Not by coincidence, I believe, a medieval Scandinavian battle axe was found in 1894 (four years before the KRS was unearthed), a foot and a half deep on the west bank of Davidson Lake, which is about one day's journey north from Runestone Hill.  My belief is that the exact finding spot of the battle axe helps to verify--like a time capsule--where the KRS campsite was likely located by this lake with two small islands.  In its inscription, the KRS indicates that a bloody massacre occurred where the men were camped by this lake. My purpose in this blog posting is to help c...