Overview: Experience the natural world through the eyes of the Vikings, when nature meets history in a journey showcasing the wildlife of the North Atlantic.

DVD Verdict: Combining blue-chip natural history filmmaking and dramatic recreations, PBS's Nature series travels from Norway to Newfoundland, just as the seafaring warriors did in 1,000 A.D., to get a glimpse of the Vikings' world in the Americas hundreds of years before Columbus.

During this wondrous, in depth and highly enlightening 53 minute documentary narrated by Ewan McGregor, we follow along and experience the deep history and cultural respect the Vikings had with the land and sea: from the killer whales of the North Sea to the puffins and otters of the Scottish coast to the volcanic mounts of Iceland and the frozen tundra of Greenland.

Vikings were Norse seafarers, mainly speaking the Old Norse language, who during the late 8th to late 11th centuries, raided and traded from their Northern European homelands across wide areas of Europe, and explored westwards to Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland.

The term is also commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Norse home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age.

This period of Nordic military, mercantile and demographic expansion constitutes an important element in the early medieval history of Scandinavia, Estonia, the British Isles, France, Kievan Rus' and Sicily.

Facilitated by advanced sailing and navigational skills, and characterized by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Following extended phases of (primarily sea- or river-borne) exploration, expansion and settlement, Viking (Norse) communities and governments were established in diverse areas of north-western Europe, Belarus, Ukraine and European Russia, the North Atlantic islands and as far as the north-eastern coast of North America.

This period of expansion witnessed the wider dissemination of Norse culture, while simultaneously introducing strong foreign cultural influences into Scandinavia itself, with profound developmental implications in both directions.

Ergo, during 'NATURE: Wild Way of the Vikings' we go back to the age where Vikings ruled the northern seas; when their only compass was the birds in the sky and the whales pushing through the icy waters. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.