In Part 1 of “My Saga,” which was published March 1, the Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard journeyed from his home in Sweden to Canada, with the intention of tracing the Viking trail from L’Anse aux Meadows, the first European settlement in North America, into the United States and westward to Alexandria, Minn., site of a possibly fraudulent Viking runestone. After several setbacks, and with just days to spare before he had to catch his return flight to Sweden, Knausgaard met the photographer Peter van Agtmael in Cleveland, and the two of them drove to Detroit.

Part 2