Vérendrye Runestone

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The Vérendrye Runestone was found on an expedition into present-day North Dakota by the French Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye in 1738.

Discovery

Vérendrye's expedition found the tablet—measuring about 5 inches wide and 13 inches long, and carved on both sides with characters unfamiliar to them—on the top of an upright stone (referred to by some, perhaps incorrectly, as a cairn) along the Missouri River, near present-day Minot, North Dakota, in 1738. When asked, natives of the area claimed that the tablet and standing stone had always been there together.

The stone's fate

The tablet was sent back to Quebec, where Jesuit priests concluded that it was written in "Tatarian" writing. They reportedly then sent it to Paris, from whence it was shipped with other artifacts to Rouen (the Rouen Cathedral?), later to be buried under a pile of rubble during World War II. The Minnesota Historical Society offers a $1000 reward for the stone's rediscovery.

Pehr Kalm, a botanist from Sweden, interviewed Vérendrye about the stone in 1749 on a trip to North America. Much of the information known about the stone is from Vérendrye and Kalm's journals.

Speculated origins

Many people, in particular Hjalmar Holand, speculate that the inscription was in fact in Norse Runes and is potentially related to the Kensington Runestone, allegedly left by a Norse expedition in Minnesota in 1362. Holand determined that resources depicting "Tatarian" writing (such as the Old Hungarian script and its ancestor the Orkhon script) available to the Jesuit priests in Quebec would have shown examples containing a large percentage of characters which are identical to other Norse characters.

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