An account of Scottish natives who may have journeyed to North America before the Vikings did. In this bestseller, Farley Mowat challenges the conventional notion that the Vikings were the first Europeans to reach North America, offering an unforgettable portrait of the Albans, a race originating from the island now known as Britain. Battered by repeated invasions from their aggressive neighbors—Celt, Roman, and Norse—the Albans fled west. Their search for safety, and for the massive walrus herds on which their survival depended, eventually took them to the land now known as Newfoundland and Labrador. Skillfully weaving together clues gathered from forty years of research, Mowat presents a fascinating account of a forgotten history. "A provocative, alternative version of history, written by a master storyteller." — The New York Times "In his unerringly superlative writing, Mowat is once again standing the archaeological world on end... For those who have never had the pleasure of engrossing themselves in an historical account by Mowat, an unforgettable experience in learning history in an entertaining way awaits them." —Foreword Reviews "In comfortable, easy prose, Mowat tells the tale of the Albans: indigenous people who, driven from the Continental mainland by invading Indo-Europeans, settled in Britain.... This is a classic good-and-evil story, complete with unspeakably violent bad guys and saintly, idealized victims. But it still feels credible, and it never bores. Mowat moves smoothly from fictionalized accounts of Alban life to quotations from centuries-old manuscripts, building his case with infectiously clever enthusiasm." —Quill & Quire