The Leif Eriksson memorial

Commonwealth Avenue mall at Charlesgate, Back Bay

The Commonwealth Avenue mall, a linear park down the middle of Comm. Ave. in the Back Bay, features statues of several prominent Bostonians - and Leif Erikson.

Eben Horsford, a 19th-century Harvard professor who discovered baking powder, was convinced that Vikings had sailed up the Charles to found Vinland - the lost Viking colony on the North American mainland. Horsford even claimed to have found evidence of Viking buildings in Cambridge and Watertown. So he commissioned a statue to commemorate the landing spot - and a tower in Weston that provides some of the proof: that area of the Charles is known as "Norumbega," which is obviously an Indian corruption of "Norway." At least, that's what he insisted.

More info:

The Norumbega tower - Background and a photo.

Why let the evidence get in the way? - The Globe's resident curmudgeon, Alex Beam, doesn't buy any of it.