Leif Ericson

Leif Ericson statue

Leif Ericson was an Icelandic explorer who is believed to have been the first European to discover North America and, more specifically, the region that would become known as Newfoundland and then Canada. It is believed that Ericson was born around 980 to Erik the Red, a Norwegian outlaw and explorer who founded two Norse colonies in Greenland. During a stay in Norway in 999, Leif converted to Christianity, as did many other Norse around that time. He also traveled to Norway to serve King Olaf I (Tryggvason).

When he returned to Greenland, he purchased the boat of Bjarni Herjólfsson and set out to explore the land that Bjarni had sighted, which later became known as North America. In 986 Bjarni was driven off course by a fierce storm between Iceland and Greenland and sighted hilly, heavily forested land far to the west but never set foot on it.

One of the sagas, “The Saga of the Greenlanders,” states that Leif embarked around the year 1000 to follow Bjarni’s route in reverse. Leif was motivated by a sense of adventure and a desire to find more land to farm. The expedition made three landfalls.


The first land they met was covered with flat rock slabs and was probably present day Baffin Island. Leif called it Helluland, which means “land of the flat stones” in Old Norse. Next he sailed to a land that was flat and wooded, with white sandy beaches, which he called Markland, meaning “woodland” in Old Norse. Markland is commonly assumed to have been Labrador.

Continuing south Leif and his men discovered land again, disembarked, and built some houses. They found the land pleasant. Salmon were plentiful in the rivers, the climate was mild, and the land was lush and green for much of the year. Leif’s 35-member party remained at this site over the winter. The sagas mention that one of Leif’s men, Tyrkir, a German warrior, found grapes.

As a result, Leif named the country Vinland, meaning “land where the grapes grow” in Old Norse. Historians disagree on the exact location of Vinland. However, several sites along the eastern coast of the United States and Canada, from Newfoundland to Virginia, have been suggested. Many believe that the Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland was Leif’s colony.

Others argue that Vinland must have been more southerly, since grapes do not grow as far north as Newfoundland; however, grapes may have grown there during the Medieval Warm Period. On the return voyage to Greenland, Leif rescued an Icelandic castaway and his crew. This deed earned him the nickname “Leif the Lucky” and made him rich from his share of the rescued cargo.

Another saga, “The Saga of Erik the Red,” asserts that Leif discovered the American mainland purely by accident. According to this saga, Leif was blown off course while returning from Norway to Greenland around 1000 and landed on the shores of North America. However the saga does not mention any attempt to settle there. “The Saga of the Greenlanders” is generally considered to be the more reliable of the two.

Leif’s father, Erik the Red, died shortly after his return home. As a result Leif stayed in Greenland to govern his father’s settlements. He died in 1025. All historical sources agree that Leif never returned to North America and his brother, Thorvald, led the next voyage to the new territory.

Subsequent attempts to settle Vinland were unsuccessful because of friction between the Norse settlers and the native North Americans. Nevertheless Leif stands as one of history’s greatest explorers, besting Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World by almost five centuries.

Vikings in North America

L’Anse aux Meadows

With the discovery in 1960–61 of artifacts and the ruins of eight buildings at L’Anse aux Meadows in Canada’s Newfoundland province, archaeologists and historians could at last replace centuries of fable and myth with hard evidence of Viking settlement in what, a half-millennium later, other Europeans would call the New World.

Excavations at the remote site, begun by husband-and-wife team Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, revealed a web of connections between Greenland and Iceland’s people of Norse heritage and Vinland. Vinland was the Viking name for a western land rich in prized grapes and butternuts, lumber and fi sh, located in what today is eastern Canada and the extreme northeastern United States.

Evidence found since then has enabled historians to link Viking activity in the New World to often-inconsistent tales of exploration and conquest found in ancient Norse sagas. L’Anse is now believed to have been a base camp for Norse chieftain Leif Ericson and others during the so-called Medieval Warm Period: several centuries of milder weather that permitted vigorous Norse exploration of sub-Arctic regions in both northern Europe and eastern Canada.


During a three-year sojourn in Vinland, Ericson’s former sister-in-law, Gudrid, then married to rival chieftain Karlsefni, gave birth to a son, Snorri, the first European known to be born in the Americas.

Established sometime between 990 and 1030 and abandoned after just a few years, L’Anse provided access to Vinland and was a landmark for sailors from Greenland and other Norse settlements. Although it seems that some women were among about 100 people housed in eight sturdy wood and sod structures, L’Anse was less a colony than a gateway to southern Vinland’s richer resources.

It was also a workshop where Norse traders could find provisions and repair their ships and weapons. Slaves, probably of Scots or German origin, and sailors visiting L’Anse manned labor crews and ran a small iron-making operation, the first known in North America.

Indigenous people, dismissively called skraeling by the Vikings, had often successfully confronted Norse invaders in other parts of Vinland but were not then living on the grassy peninsula where L’Anse was built.

Vikings in North America

Nevertheless, residents soon abandoned the site, carefully removing useful goods and possibly setting fire to the largest dwelling halls. They may have feared new indigenous attacks, or perhaps Vinland was not producing enough desirable resources and trade items to make the difficulties of living there preferable to longer settled Greenland and Iceland.

In 1497 five years after Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to what he believed to be Asia, Venetian John Cabot, sailing for England, “discovered” a “new isle,” soon named Newfoundland. Historians continue to argue whether other Europeans ever knew of Viking incursions into this western land or had forgotten that knowledge over the centuries.

In any case, interest in Viking deeds, possibly including discovery of the New World, would become, especially for Scandinavian immigrants to America, a source of pride and fascination. In 1837 a Danish scholar translated parts of the Vinland sagas into English and argued for Norse presence in America. His research helped spawn various hoaxes and fantasies of America’s Viking past.

In 2000 the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History celebrated the millennium of the first European contact with North America. L’Anse is a Canadian National Historic Site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a tourist attraction. During its brief summer season, costumed reenactors show and tell visitors about America’s Viking past.