my surprising little secret…
june 2022
I’m a bit of a history buff. Surprising, I know. I mean, who’d have guessed that this freight forwarding, beer-loving, footie fan would also have a passion for history?
You probably already know that for centuries sailors have been using the north star for navigation? First charted by Claudius Ptolemy around 100 BCE and located directly above the North Pole, the north star was a simple way for pirates, privateers and explorers throughout the ages to stay on course.
But what you probably didn’t know is that the Vikings had a different way of navigating.
Birds. Ravens to be more specific. Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson was the first Norseman to sail to Iceland (well the first to do it on purpose anyway!) And he used ravens to find his way. Upon his giant, Viking longboat he carried a cage of these beautiful black birds. Every now and then he’d release one…
Now, ravens have their own in-built GPS tracker for land. If there’s land nearby the raven would find it. So, if the bird flew around aimlessly above the boat, there wasn’t any land close by. But if the raven flew away from the boat, Vilgerðarson would follow – and Vilgerðarson (and the bird) would eventually come to the nearest piece of land. Pretty clever right? Still, not a navigation system I’d like to rely on these days.
Thankfully, technology has moved on from the days of astrological or raptor navigation. These days we can not only tell which direction we should be heading… but we can track ships all over the world no matter where they are.
And that’s exactly what we do here at Millennium. Gone are the days of waiting for your freight with no clue of how it’s progressing. With our new cargo tracker, you can track your container every step of its journey. Giving you complete peace of mind and an accurate timeline for your delivery.
Want to learn more? Give us a call and we’ll fill you in…