Semantic Slippage as a New Aspect of Authenticity: Viking Tourism on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland

In this article Fife examines contemporary use of Viking sites in Newfoundland to explore how a scientifically established archaeological site has served as the basis for an elaborate construction of heritage sites in an economically depressed region of Canada. He suggests a new theory of semantic slippage to account for the process by which original "signs" are turned into popularly acceptable modernist representations of a Viking past. Numerous suggestions are given for future research on this issue that will allow us to understand better the construction of heritage sites that rely on the public perception of authenticity in order to maintain their popularity as tourist sites.