MIA - Snorri : 2000 - 2016

It is with a very heavy heart I have to announce that Snorri, DARC's travelling gnome, is Missing in Action.

Snorri was last seen on Sunday September 11, at the ARTifact's - Pruszkow Archaeological Festival in Poland.

Snorri was easily the most traveled member of DARC. His first voyage with us was to take part in the Norstead demostration at L'Anse aux Meadows Newfoundland in 2000. On that trip he substituted for Thorgrimmir (who could make that trip). Since then he has accompanied many of us in DARC on various adventures. In my company alone he has made several trips back to Vinland, any number of trips throughout Canada, to the USA, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and finally Poland as his last seen destination. This is hardly the full list of his travels, as he accompanied so many members of DARC on individual voyages.

Snorri supervised my two iron smelting demonstrations at the Pruszkow event:

Snorri examining the remains of the first iron smelt at Pruszkow (The last image of him)

Snorri again supervised the second smelt there that happened on the Sunday. The last time he was clearly seen was at the end of the extraction process that day, about 4 - 5 pm. He had been comfortably sitting on our side work table at that point.
Everyone then gathered away from our work area to assist in the massive effort of dismantling the huge 'Roman' style furnace (1.5 m ID x 2.3 m tall). The team then returned to our station and started to pack up equipment and clean up our equipment.
Honestly, both Kelly and I had thought the other had collected Snorri at the end of that exhausting working day. The next morning, as we packed to leave for our plane out of Poland, Snorri was not to be found...

Some images from Snorri's last trip in our company:

Superivising the Ypres 2016 work.

Hamming it up with the locals in Ypres

Always the Viking - checking 'valuables' in Ypres Cathedral

That's one BIG dog - outside Passendale.

Sharing one last beer (with Dan Nickles) at Ypres 2016

Instructing 'Loki' - Smelt 1 at Pruszkow

You can see that Snorri certainly enjoyed his travels around Ypres as part of the Ypres 2016 project. He continued providing his long experience with many iron smelting experiments at the Pruszkow ARTifacts event.

Snorri has been well known for this roving eye with the ladies. (On more than one occasion in the past he has been known to 'miss the boat' because he has dallied too long with some fair maid!) It is our hope that his absence in Poland is just due to another time he wandered off in the company of some pretty girl.

He most certainly will be missed, and I offer my best wishes to him - where ever he may now voyage...


Extreme apologies to all of DARC, especially to Steve!
I had waited to announce this, because I wanted to double check with the Museum staff hosting the event, and also the other team members working in our area. As it turned out, none of them remember seeing Snorri past late afternoon Sunday either. He certainly was not present when the museum staff returned later the following day to clean the working areas.
Most likely what happened is a member of the public 'jumped the rope line' while the rest of us were occupied with dismantling the large furnace.

Darrell