Vikings in North America

Saga accounts of Viking voyages to what appears to be North America were written around the year 1200; it was not  the early 1960s that archeologists realized that they must have been based on true events.

Then Helge Instad, a Norwegian archaeologist, discovered a site in northern Newfoundland that matched a saga description of a Viking settlement almost perfectly.

The building, weapons, tools and other objects at the site dated from the 900s and 1000s, the time when Vikings were exploring the lands west of Scandinavia, confirming that the Vikings reached the NewWorld about 500 years before Columbus.

There are two sagas about the discovery of North America: the Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Eric the Red.

Saga of the Greenlanders

Bjarni Herjólfsson

According to the Greenlander's Saga, a merchant shipowner named Bjarni Herjólfsson traveled a regular route between Norway and Iceland. In the summer of 986, Bjarni set out from Norway carrying goods to bring to his father in Iceland.

When he arrived in Iceland, Bjarni discovered that his father had gone to Greenland with Eric the Red.

Bjarni and his men set off to search for his father

After three days of smooth sailing, the wind dropped and the ship was surrounded by a dense fog, which persisted for three days, so that Bjarni and his crew had had no idea where they were.

Then the fog lifted and the sun came out. Within a day, land was in sight.

Bjarni sailed in close to the coast and caught sight of low, forest-covered hills. Turning northward, he sailed on, and two days later reached another land.

Although Bjarni had never seen Greenland, he had heard it described to him. He knew this land could not possibly be Greenland, since it did not have any glaciers.

As the boat drew closer to the shore, the voyagers saw that the land was flat and wooded. When the wind dropped and the crew suggested going ashore for wood and water, but Bjarni forbid this.

Once again, they hoisted sail. A southwest wind carried them for three days before they saw land for the third time.

This time, they saw a mountainous land with glaciers. Once again, Bjarni refused to land.

Bjarni and his crew then traveled to Herjólfsness in Greenland, where Bjarni's father lived and where Bjarni finally settled.

Around the year 1000, Bjarni visited a jarl in Norway named Eric, and told him of the three new lands he had seen.

Leif Ericson

In Greenland, Leif Ericson, son of Eric the Red, heard Bjarni's account and decided that he would go and see the new lands for himself.

Leif traveled to Herjólfsness, bought Bjarni's ship from him, and gathered a willing crew of 35.

Leif's expedition first reached land at the third of the countries Bjarni had sighted. They anchored the ship and rowed ashore in the ship's boat.

The land was completely barren, with glaciers in even direction. Leif named the area Helluland (land of flat stones). Most authorities agree that this was the southern part of Baffin Island, though some believe it to have been Labrador or Newfoundland.

Leif and his crew then sailed to the second land of which Bjarni spoken.

This was low and wooded, with white sandy beaches running down to the sea.

Leif called this region Markland (woodland). This was probably Labrador, but may have been Newfoundland, or Nova Scotia.

Leif and his crew then sailed for two more days, with a northeast wind, before sighting land. They went ashore on an island that lay just north of a cape, where they found lush grass.

They then sailed through the channel west around the cape and up a river. They moored in a lake and built temporary shelters. Later they built a more solid house and decided to winter there.

The salmon in the river were plentiful and larger than any they had ever seen. The climate of the land was so mild that they had no need to prepare cattle fodder for the winter.

During the winter, daylight lasted longer than in Iceland or Greenland. On the shortest day of winter, the sun was still visible in the middle of the afternoon as well as at breakfast time.

Once the house was built, Leif decided to divide his company into two groups, one to stay behind at the house while the other went out exploring the countryside.

One evening when both groups were together in the house, they realized that one of them, Tyrker, a German who was Leif's foster father, was missing.

Before an organized search party had set out, Tyrker returned, claiming that he had found vines and grapes.

Scholars today do not understand what it was, exactly, that Tyrker found. It is possible that, as a result of climate change, grapes were once able to grow that far north although they cannot grow their today.

Leif named the new land Vinland (Wineland.)

It is believed that Vinland was somewhere between Newfoundland to the north and Long Island to the south.

Thorvald Ericson

In about 1002, Leif's brother Thorvald borrowed a ship and set out for Vinland. The party encamped at Leifsbudir (Leif's house) in Vinland for the winter.

In the spring, a group set out westward by boat and explored several islands. The only sign of human habitation that they encountered was a wooden grain store. This may have been built by native Algonquians.

Thorvald and his men returned to Leifsbudir in the autumn.

The following summer, Thorvald set off eastward and then north along the coast. His ship was caught in a gale, which broke the keel and drove it onto a cape, which he called Kjalarnes (keel cape).

The sailors remained there to repair the ship.

From the cape, they then sailed due east into the mouth of a fjord, a place that Thorvald thought was so beautiful he told his men he would like to make his home there.

On a stretch of sand inside the headland, the travelers came across three boats made from animal skins. Underneath each boat were three sleeping men. The Vikings killed all but one of the sleeping men, whom they called "Skraelings", a word used in the sagas to describe the natives of different countries.

These Skraelings may have been Algonquians. Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman who explored North America centuries later, noted that the Native Americans he met had a habit of sleeping under overturned boats when traveling.

Thorvald's party walked onto the headland and saw many mounds, which they thought, were human habitations.

They were then overcome with drowsiness and fell asleep.

Suddenly, a loud nose woke them. They saw Skraeling canoes putting out from the opposite shore.

The Skraelings fired arrows at the Norsemen and then withdrew. One of arrow mortally wounded Thorvald. As he died, he asked his men to bury him at the headland he had selected for his home and to call that place Krossanes (cross cape).

Settlement in Vinland

In the summer of 1005, a ship from Iceland brought Thorfinn Karlsefni, an Icelandic merchant, to Greenland. He stayed with Leif at Brattahlid and married the Gudrid, the widow of Thorvald's brother Thorstein, who had died of illness. Gudrid urged Karlsefni to go to Vinland.

He agreed, and they sailed to Vinland with 160 men, 5 women, and some livestock. When they arrived safely at Leifsbudir they found a stranded whale, which kept them well supplied with food. Fishing and hunting generally were good.

Next summer, the settlers made contact with the Skraelings. The Skraelings gave the Norsemen furs in exchange for food, and then went away.

Karlsefni built a stockade around his house in preparation for the Skraelings' next visit. Before it was completed, his wife Gudrid gave birth to a son, Snorri, the first European born on American soil.

On their next visit to the encampment, the Skraelings tried to steal the Greenlanders' weapons, resulting in a skirmish.

The third encounter between Indians and settlers led to more serious fighting. This time Karlsefni, deciding that the new country's disadvantages outweighed its advantages, ordered his men to return to Greenland.

The next person to initiate a voyage to Vinland was Freydis, a daughter of Eric the Red.

She convinced two brothers from Norway to sail to Leifsbudir with her and her husband.

Each party took 30 men and their wives with them.

They arrived at Leifsbudir, where Freydis moved into Leif's old house and the brothers built another house. A quarrel broke out between the two houses, and Freydis goaded her husband into killing the two brothers and their men. Then Freydis took an ax and dealt with the women herself.

Early in the spring, she and her husband loaded the ships and sailed back to Greenland.

Saga of Eric the Red

According to Eric the Red's Saga, it was Leif Ericson, not Bjarni Herjólfsson, who first discovered Vinland.

In this version, Thorfinn Karlsefni's party followed the by now traditional route to Leifsbudir, and on the way found the keel of a ship at a place they called Keel Cape.

To the south, they could see the Atlantic shoreline's seemingly endless beaches, which they named Furdustrandir (wonder beaches.).

The party continued to sail parallel to the beaches until they discovered a bay. There they put a Scottish couple ashore to explore the land. The couple, named Hake and Hekja returned in three days, carrying ears of wild wheat.

The expedition set off once more. They sailed into a fjord indented with bays and streams, which they named Straumfjord. Karlsefni and his man l explored the mountainous terrain, which they found to be very beautiful.

The following winter was harsh and the Norsemen had done nothing to prepare for it. There was nothing to hunt or fish.

Ten of the would-be colonists turned back. They were caught in a storm and driven across the Atlantic to Ireland, where they were d forced into slavery.

The rest of the colonists continued southward with Karlsefni. They established a base at a place they called Hop (landlocked bay).

Early one morning, nine canoes made of animal skins arrived. Their crews carried staves which they whirled in the air with a threshing noise.

The canoeists landed, surveyed the Norsemen with astonishment, stayed a while, and then paddled away.

The Norsemen spent the winter at Hop, where the weather was very mild.

One spring morning, another fleet of canoes arrived.

The strangers came ashore and bartered skins and fur for red cloth.

A bull belonging to one of Karlsefni's men bellowed at them so loudly that the terrified Skraelings left in a great hurry. Some days later, a vast horde of Skraeling canoes arrived and there was a fierce battle.