The Farfarers: Before the Norse is a non-fiction book by Farley Mowat, setting out a theory about pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. Mowat's thesis is that before the Vikings, North America was discovered and settled by Europeans from Orkney. They reached Canada after a generation-spanning migration that used Iceland and Greenland as 'stepping stones'. Mowat's ideas are controversial and have been accused of being over-speculative. The book has been published in the UK as The Alban Quest. The 'Albans' Mowat's premise is that Iceland, Greenland and North America were visited and settled before the Vikings by Europeans from the northern British Isles. Mowat refers to these people as Albans, after the ancestral name for the British Isles, and maintains that the Albans were descendants of the original Neolithic peoples of Britain displaced by the Celts. He argues that these peoples were pushed to the fringes of north-western Europe, in Northern Scotland, Orkney and Shetland by Armorican refugees fleeing the Romans. The latter constructed brochs along the coasts of Scotland and became known as the Picts. Mowat believes that the Albans were hunters of walrus ivory. Demand for this valuable material led the Albans to discover Iceland or Thule centuries before the Vikings (as described by the Greek explorer Pytheas in 330 BC). The Albans used sophisticated long-distance boats with hulls made of hide. Iceland Mowat believes that settlement of Iceland began early in the first millennium AD. After the end of Roman rule in Britain, unrest and military threats to Alba from the Scoti in the west and the Vikings in the north resulted in widespread settlement of Iceland by fleeing Albans during the 5th to 7th centuries . In search of new sources of ivory, Alban hunters explored the coasts of Greenland, Baffin Island, Ungava Bay, and Labrador before discovering Newfoundland. Mowat believes that the hunters would create camp sites for overwintering by placing their boats on top of stone foundations, like the one on Pamiok Island. Mowat believes that the Albans encountered the Tunit in the Canadian Arctic, and that some Albans eventually lived and intermarried with the Tunit. Mowat believes that Viking interest in Iceland was prompted by the wealth of ivory and other materials such as furs reaching Europe on Alban ships from Iceland. In support of this, he cites the Viking Sagas, which state that the Viking discoverers of Iceland found it to be already inhabited by