Reflections 2012
Series 25
December 31
Norse Expansion III c: Norse Greenland - Vinland

 

After discussing Norse Expansion I, Eastward to Russia, and II, Southwestward to Britain and Normandy, we caught up again to this summer's trip with III a, Westward out of the Stavanger area to Shetland/Orkney and the Faroes, and III b, to Iceland. While today's Iceland is the farthest west Scandinavia moved permanently, the Norse did continue on to Greenland, and Vinland, both of which are the subject of III c, although neither of these settlements survive today.

 
 

The Family   We first met in Norway the dysfunctional family that was famously involved with Greenland and Vinland. We can't name the family, since they only used the patronym system then all over Scandinavia, the system that still survives only in Iceland, and didn't have a family name. Patronymic identification only lasted (and still lasts in Iceland) from one generation to the next in the "son-of" or "daughter-of" fashion. No identification reference reached directly back to grandparents or beyond. Here's a summary of what we said in 2012/18.

 
 

The oldest of the three generations under discussion was the grandfather, Þorvald Asvaldsson, who was exiled from Norway with his family circa 960 because of a manslaughter charge. His son Erik Þorvaldson, 950 to circa 1003, known as Erik the Red, went with his father into exile in northwestern Iceland. He in turn had to go into exile for three years, also on a manslaughter charge, which he spent in Greenland. He didn't discover Greenland, but founded the first permanent colony there. He traveled back to Iceland, but remains most associated with his family estate in Greenland, Brattahlið where he died.

 
 

Erik had three sons and a daughter in Iceland, who went with the family to Greenland. Leif Erikson, c 970 to c 1020, is the famous one, which explains why his patronym Eiriksson has been anglicized to Erikson or Ericson (I'll stick to the more logical K spelling). Like his father with Greenland, Leif is the one most associated with Vinland, and also like his father, he wasn't the first to spot Vinland, but was the first to land there. Leif died back at the family estate in Greenland. Remember that it's "safe" to call him "Leif" in the original, and don't anglicize him into a leaf.

 
 

Vinland Sagas   Let's review again how we know of the Greenland and Vinland events, and what reliability the sources may hold. Of all the Icelandic sagas, it's two of them that discuss the topics of Greenland and Vinland, and they are grouped together as the Vinland Sagas. One is called the Saga of the Greenlanders (Grænlendinga Saga), which I'll refer to as the SGreen, and the Saga of Erik the Red (Eiriks Saga Rauða), which I'll call the SRed. Hopefully it won't sound like I'm talking about traffic lights.

 
 

These two sagas, like all, were originally oral history, and weren't written down until at least two centuries after the fact. To some extent stories may have been embellished in the telling, so the sagas may be considered to have a literary vein in with the history. They don't always tell exactly the same thing (compare Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), sometimes details appear in one and not the other, and sometimes they contradict each other. Still they contain substantial evidence of the history of both Greenland and Vinland, and are the most complete information we have.

 
 

Norse Greenland & Erik the Red   Common perception, based on simplified history, says that Erik the Red discovered Greenland. Not so. Someone else discovered it, and someone else still had attempted an unsuccessful first settlement.

 
 

It all started with a mistake. Just as Dirk Hartog (2010/10) accidentally discovered the west coast of Australia by being blown off course, and just as we'll see later Vinland was first sighted by someone being blown off course, well before Erik, a Norwegian sailor named Gunnbjörn Ulfsson was blown off course sailing from Norway to Iceland. He sighted and reported (but did not land on) a group of skerries (small islands) close to the east coast of Greenland still known today as Gunnbjörn's Skerries. The exact date is not recorded in the sagas, but it was most likely the early 900's. In commemoration of Gunnbjörn's sighting, the highest mountain in Greenland is called Gunnbjörn Fjeld. Gunnbjörn's sighting of these islands is considered the definitive discovery of Greenland. On that basis, for those who rightly consider Greenland part of North America, Gunnbjörn was also the first European to sight North America. For those that don't, he wasn't. Historical firsts are not always clearly defined.

 
 

Around 978, the first intentional visit, following Gunnbjörn's lead, took place by Snæbjörn Galti, who attempted disastrously to found the first Norse colony in Greenland, on the east coast. The saga about Galti has been lost, though.

 
 

In 982, Erik the Red went on to explore the mainland, specifically the west coast, where, according to the SRed, he spent his three years of exile from Iceland looking for areas that both seemed relatively ice-free and promised growth, and where he evidently decided on his promotion of a green Greenland. He got recruits by convincing those Norse to emigrate who were living on poor land in Iceland, as well as those who had gone through a recent famine. With these, he'd establish the first permanent Norse colonies in Greenland.

 
 

Erik came back in 986 with his would-be colonists and established two colonies, both on the southern end of the west coast in the only areas thought suitable for farming. The major one, the one where he would establish his own estate, he called the Eastern Settlement (Eystribyggð), in today's Qaqortoq/Narsarsuaq area. He also established the Western Settlement (Vestribyggð) in the area of today's Nuuk, which turned out to be secondary. Later, there was also a minor Middle Settlement. In warm weather, groups of men would travel up the west coast to Disko Island in Disko Bay to hunt for food and commodities, such as ivory from walrus tusks. The names of the two main settlements are a bit confusing, since they lie in a southeast-to-northwest direction on the west coast, while the names imply locations on the west and east coasts. This was notably so to Hans Egede, when, in 1723, he finally found the churches and ruins of the Eastern Settlement, but considered them to be the Western.

 
 

The Norse rulers of Greenland took the title of Paramount Chieftain. Erik was the first, followed by his son Leif Erikson, followed by HIS son, Thorkell Leifson. Erik, who became both greatly respected and wealthy, built his estate, Brattahlið, in the Eastern Settlement, at the upper end near Narsarsuaq. The fjord it was on became known as Eiriksfjord. He issued tracts of land to his followers. The Eastern Settlement flourished, reaching a total of 3,000-5,000 inhabitants and spreading over neighboring fjords. Ruins of over 600 farms have been identified by archaeologists, 500 in the Eastern Settlement, 95 in the Western, 20 in the Middle, giving a rough idea of the size of each. The colony was given a bishop in 1126, at Garðar, and there are ruins of at least five churches, the cathedral, a monastery and a nunnery. The Greenland Norse exported walrus ivory, furs, rope, sheep, whale or seal blubber, live animals, such as polar bears, and cattle hides. They depended on Iceland and Norway for iron tools, wood, especially for boat building, and supplemental foods. They also may have obtained wood for the Labrador coast (see below). Others immigrated from Iceland, but those arriving in 1002 brought in an epidemic with them that killed many, including Erik.

 
 

The colony began to decline during the 1300's. The tiny Middle Settlement had to have gone first, and the secondary Western Settlement was reported by an Icelandic clerical official as abandoned around 1350. In 1370-80 the essential trade with Norway declined. By 1378 Garðar no longer had a bishop. The last written record mentioning settlers was the recording of a marriage in 1408 at Hvalsey church, and the last known boat returning to Europe from Greenland arrived in Norway in 1410. Probably somewhere in the mid 1400's the Norse population of Greenland disappeared, having lasted just short of five centuries, starting in the 980's. That's really quite a period of time. If you figure that later on, the French and Spanish arrived in North America in about 1500 (and the British in about 1600) Norse Greenland's five centuries minus is about equivalent to the five centuries plus of Canada and the US.

 
 

However, Greenland was different then than today. When the Norse settled there, the inner regions of the long fjords had considerable birch woods, with trees 4-6 meters/yards high, and the hills were covered with grass and willow bushes. But the Norse soon changed that by cutting down the trees for building material and for heating, and also by extensive year-round grazing by sheep and goats. This environmental damage was one factor in their decline. Also, Greenland's climate went through a cooling period in the 14C-15C, resulting in extra sea ice acting as a navigational barrier. Other factors in its decline were the loss of personal and family contacts with Iceland and Norway over time, and conflicts with Inuit moving in to the Norse territories. The Norse were almost universally hostile to the Inuit, who they called disparagingly skrælings, and some Norse settlements were attacked by the Inuit in the late 1300's, and possibly wiped out. A significant factor is that the Norse maintained a cultural conservatism and failed to adapt fully to Greenland. The culture they maintained included ways of living unsuitable for Greenland. Where the Inuit learned to live with the land, hunting local fauna such as whales and seals, the Norse did not, nor did they learn techniques of kayak navigation. There was little to no trade between the Norse and the Inuit.

 
 

These are all possible factors in their decline, but no one really knows what happened to them. They may not have starved to death, but there could have been unrecorded Inuit or European attacks. Or they may have just abandoned the colony to move to Iceland, where their ancestors had come from, especially since there were few personal belongings found, which would indicate they left in an orderly fashion.

 
 

Greenlandic Norse (Language)   The Norse westward expansion resulted in two extinct North Germanic Languages in the two places where the Norse settled for a considerable time, but are no longer there. The Norse who lived in the Northern Isles of Shetland and Orkney spoke Norn (2012/18), which has died out. Similarly, Greenlandic Norse, the Scandinavian (North Germanic) Language that developed in the Greenland settlements became extinct when those populations disappeared. The only remnant of Greenlandic Norse is attested by some 80 runic inscriptions (2012/13), from which only little can be learned about the language.

 
 

But it is believed that two words from Greenlandic Norse have survived, embedded in two other languages, one more surprising than the other. One word is kona, the Greenlandic Norse word for "woman", which remains today, to little surprise, with the same meaning in Icelandic, another North Germanic language. But it also managed to enter Kalaalisut, the language of the Inuit, which illustrates more of a linguistic leap.

 
 

Even more interesting is what happened to the Greenlandic Norse derogatory word used for the various indigenous peoples they found in Greenland and Vinland, skræling, which actually appeared as skrælingi, and had a meaning beyond just "native", perhaps something like "savage". It, too, appears today in Icelandic, in the form skrælingi, with the meaning of "pagan". But it's even more surprising that this derogatory word not only entered Kalaalisut as well, it's been adapted to actually mean "Greenlander". The older form was Karaaleq, which was modified to Kalaaleq, and is therefore actually the basis for the name of the language itself, Kalaalisut.

 
 

This word adoption is harder to see. Pick out from skræling the consonants near the beginning SKR-L-. Evidently, the consonant cluster SKR doesn't exist in Kalaalisut, so the initial S was dropped, leaving KR-L-. This is the basis for the older form Karaaleq, which has K-R-L-. It was then not a huge leap for the R to change to an L to complement the following L (called "anticipatory assimilation at a distance"), resulting in Kalaaleq, with K-L-L- instead.

 
 

The Three Settlements   Smallest, least known, and least significant, is the Middle Settlement (Map by Masae), located near the Eastern Settlement about a quarter of the distance between today's Qaqortoq and today's Nuuk. On this map, the red dots indicate known Norse farm ruins. The name of the settlement is not historic and was coined by modern archaeologists. No written records of its residents survive. It was probably established last and abandoned soonest of the three settlements.

 
 

Deep inland on Nuuk's fjord, is the Western Settlement (Map by Masae). The main fjord is the leftmost, and if you sail into it and pass a couple of islands on the right, the first hook-shaped peninsula on the right is the "cape" where Nuuk is located and named for. It's such ironic history that Egede settled on this cape in 1721, and in the next couple of years looked for all the settlements, and, even though the Western Settlement was here under his nose, he never found it. Instead, he did find the Eastern Settlement, but thought it was the Western, since it was on the west coast, and he assumed the Eastern would be on the east coast.

 
 

At its peak, the Western Settlement, about which much less is known, had about 1,000 inhabitants, about a quarter as big as the Eastern, because of its shorter growing season. It was last mentioned by a traveler who was there between 1341 and 1360, at which time he found only vacant farms.

 
 

The largest farm here was Sandnæs, "Sand Point", which had been covered in sand and then well-preserved by the permafrost, so that archaeologists had a lot to work with. It was settled around 1000 and abandoned by the late 1300's. One thing that was discovered in a graveyard at Sandnæs was an arrowhead from a native American culture in Labrador, which indicated that the Norse continued to trade with the American mainland even after Vinland was abandoned.

 
 

But it's the Eastern Settlement that was the principal center of activity, settled first, lasted longest, and was the largest. At its peak, it probably contained about 4,000 inhabitants, and its economy was based on livestock farming, mainly sheep and cattle. We note on this map, as with the maps of the other settlements, the presence of the icesheet, always nearby, and also how close Cape Farewell is. We are here "right around the corner" for ships coming from Iceland. But also note that the red dots here, contrary to the previous two maps, do not represent farm ruins, of which the Eastern Settlement had perhaps 500, including 16 church ruins, but instead points of interest. Of the several long fjords, note principally on this historical map the Eiriksfjord, named after Erik the Red, and known today as the Tunulliarfik Fjord. Also note to its east the Einarsfjord, which is today apparently called the Qaqortoq Fjord. But locate principally, Brattahlíð, Erik's estate on "his" fjord; nearby, Garðar, the site of the cathedral; and Hvalsey, the site of whose church is the best preserved Norse ruin in Greenland, and my hoped-for, but failed, add-on destination last June (2012/24).

 
 

A Vicarious Visit to the Eastern Settlement   When I got home from Iceland, I was still motivated enough to sit down immediately and see how one could get to the Narsarsuaq/Qaqortoq area to visit the site of the Eastern Settlement at a future date. It's not exactly a matter of "you can't get there from here", but close enough. Any Canada connection via Iqaluit on Baffin Island is totally impractical, and that's the only possible connection from North America, which leaves only two choices. Flying from New York to Copenhagen back to Narsarsuaq is idiotic. Flying from New York to Reykjavik, where I'd just come back from, to Narsarsuaq was almost as idiotic, although conceivable. I found online what seems to be an excellent local tour operator, but the packages they offer, while doable, are really more adventuresome than I'd like. They are guideless tours out of Narsarsuaq, which is more than fine with me, but involve boat transfers between sites, occasional short-distance hikes, and at best would include Brattahlið and Garðar, plus Qaqortoq, but one would then have to arrange a side trip to Hvalsey separately out of Qaqortoq. While the main package has single rates, the potential Hvalsey add-on day trip is for a minimum of two. It would be an adventure, but rather off-the-wall and somewhat tenuous, and I decided to put the thought aside. I believe in "never say never", but I'm really quite satisfied enjoying a "visit" to this area vicariously right now, along with readers.

 
 

We saw above a historic map of the area. The best (and only) modern one I've found is on the website of the tour operator, the intriguingly named : Blue Ice Explorer. My purpose here is to see the map, but if you want to check "Packages" and "Round trip 6 days - Qaqortoq", you can review what I've been discussing, including the possible Hvalsey add-on.

 
 

But it's the map we want to inspect. Note the scale showing 20 km (12.4 mi) to realize the compactness of this area. Finally, we get to see just where the Narsarsuaq airport is at the head of the Tunulliarfik Fjord (Eiriksfjord), and Qaqortoq, much closer to the sea, yet still inland from it, on the Qaqortoq Fjord (Einarsfjord). The three black X's show the three main points of interest, plus the present villages near two of them. The Brattahlið estate is near Qassiarsuk. I find it amazing that, when this wartime airport was built at tiny Narsarsuaq, it was by chance just across the water from this principal Norse location of almost a millennium earlier. Garðar and its cathedral are near Igaliku on Qaqortoq Fjord (Einarsfjord), but access is best from the tiny port of Itelleq on Tunulliarfik Fjord (Eiriksfjord), a 4 km (2.5 mi) hike (but you can ride in the car taking your luggage). Hvalsey (here in the Danish version, Hvalsø) is also on Qaqortoq Fjord and apparently not near any modern town, but reachable by a separate boat tour from Qaqortoq.

 
 

For our discussion, let's move to this 6-day tour map from their website, which numbers the days one reaches each location, including a glacier viewing at the end. We'll do our own sequencing, starting with Brattahlið at Qassiarsuk.

 
 

The airport town of Narsarsuaq (Photo by Algkalv) has a population of 158 (2010). This panorama shows the airport, settlement, and Tunulliarfik Fjord. Qassiarsuk, 5 km (3.1 mi) across from it at the head of the fjord, has 58. They both lie at the heart of Norse Greenland, some 96 km (60 mi) from the ocean, so it's historically been sheltered from ocean storms. This view shows some farms at Qassiarsuk, an area that still has some of the very best farmland in Greenland, owing to its protected location from harsh ocean weather.

 
 

Brattahlið, which means "Steep Slope", is nearby, and apparently ruins of several of the buildings (Photo by PederM), including living quarters, outhouses, and a church, are still clearly visible. Brattahlið hosted the first Greenlandic þing (parliament), based on the Icelandic Alþing, although its exact location remains unknown. As for the church, Leif Erikson became Christianized, and convinced his mother Thjodhild to do so as well, although his father Erik refused. Still, Erik yielded and built Thjodhild a church, although he himself never visited it. Thus, Thjodhild's Church (Þjóðhildarkirkja) at Brattahlið is probably the first church in the New World, actually a small chapel. A recent reconstruction of Thjodhild's Church (Photo by Hamish Laird), seen here with the fjord in the background, now stands near the actual site.

 
 

The next stop on our virtual tour is Garðar at Igaliku, population 55, most easily accessible from Itilleq. Igaliku (Photo by Serge Kräutle) is best known for the ruins of Garðar, as the seat of the bishop, once the religious heart of 12C Norse Greenland. Archeologists have worked here since the 1830's, working particularly on the cathedral, which was fully excavated in 1926. There are many other ruins nearby, mostly stone foundations of the walls in their original positions, so the extent of the settlement can be understood. The cross-shaped cathedral was built in the 12C of sandstone, 27 m (89 ft) long and 16 m (52 ft) wide. Two large barns on the site could hold up to 160 cows, since the church ran the largest farm in Greenland.

 
 

But it was Hvalsey Church that I really wanted to see. The name of the farmstead means "Whale Island" (hval+s+ey = whale+'s+island) and is the site of the largest, best-preserved Norse ruins in Greenland. It was established by Erik's uncle Þorkell in the late 10C and was a major center for the region. The site has the ruins of two stone great halls and 14 houses close to the church, which was first erected in the early 12C. The church is mentioned in several late medieval documents as one of the 10-14 parish churches in the Eastern Settlement. An interesting twist connecting with Scotland's Northern Isles is that the church may have been built by Scots-Norse stonemasons, since there are similar structures in Norway and Orkney. Also, the window openings are wider on the inside, something not done in Icelandic churches, but well known in early British churches.

 
 

The church (Photo by Frederik Carl Peter Rüttel) was exceptionally well built. Some stones weigh over five tons, and all were carefully chosen, laid, and fitted. Icelandic churches from the same period are all gone, because they were mostly built from timber or turf. The walls are up to 1.5 m (5 ft) thick. The building is 16 x 8 m (52 x 26 ft) in size. The gables at the end are 5-6 m (16-20 ft) high and may have once been taller. The walls on the sides are 4 m (13 ft), but also may have once been taller. It would have had a timber-and-turf roof, similar to the above reconstructed Thjodhild's church or to the turf house seen in 2012/24. The church was originally plastered with ground mussel shells, so would have been white. Since the nearby modern town of Qaqortoq means "the white place", it could have been named in association with the church. While the church has been restored, it has not been rebuilt. The Greenland government has applied to have the church approved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 
 

The Hvalsey Church is involved in the last document relating to the Norse settlements in Greenland. The document records the wedding at the church on 16 September 1408 of two Icelanders, the ship captain Þorsteinn Ólafsson and Sigriður Björnsdóttir. Two years later, they returned first to Norway, then to Iceland, to settle on the bride's family farm at Akrar, north Iceland, in 1413. All the details were recorded in letters between Papal dignitaries in Iceland and the Vatican. Although the Eastern Settlement, the longest-lasting of the three, persisted at least to the 1450's or longer, after this wedding, all contact was lost with Norse Greenland until Hans Egede arrived at Hvalsey in 1723, two years after first arriving in Greenland. He described the church ruin, which was apparently then in a similar condition to what it is in today (2005 Photo by Tappert).

 
 

Vinland & Leif Erikson   I somehow always had the impression that Greenland had been long settled before the Norse continued on to Vinland, and now find that isn't the case at all. The Norse set foot in Vinland a mere decade and a half after first reaching Greenland. I suppose the westward quest was unrelenting.

 
 

VOYAGE OF BJARNI HERJÓLFSSON Once again, the person most associated with Vinland, Leif Erikson, was not the first one to see it, a man named Bjarni Herjólfsson was. And once again, it was by pure accident, since Bjarni was looking for Greenland! History is great. You can't make this stuff up.

 
 

I have difficulty realizing the extent that the Norse "commuted" between the areas we've been discussing, since I didn't think people traveled as much as that a millennium ago, but Bjarni, a merchant sea captain who was born in Iceland but was based in Norway, had the custom of traveling every year from Norway to Iceland to spend time with his parents. One year, it was 985 or 986, he gets to Iceland and surprise! His parents have emigrated to Greenland with Erik's first settlement group. He decides to go after them, but realizes it's dangerous, since neither he nor his crew had any experience in Greenland waters. Three days out of Iceland weather conditions cause him to get lost. After several days more, the sun comes out and Bjarni reaches a forested land with low hills, which he knows is not Greenland. He continued sailing north and found a second land, level, and also wooded, but he didn't stop there, either. He continued north for three more days and found a mountainous land with glaciers. He still didn't believe this to be Greenland and continued on for four more days until he found something that sounded like the descriptions of Greenland he'd heard, and eventually, he found his father's estate. It's believed that what he saw as he sailed northward were, in turn, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Baffin Island. Nevertheless, as much as his curious crew urged him to stop, he never set foot on any of these places to explore them, so can't claim credit for discovering them. He is credited, however, as the first European to have SEEN North America.

 
 

Bjarni reported in Greenland what he'd done and seen, but nothing came of it. After his father's death, he returned to Norway and made an official report. At this point Leif Erikson bought the ship that Bjarni had used, hired a crew of 35, and set out to find the land.

 
 

This is one of the places where the two sagas disagree. Barni's story appears only in SGreen. In SRed, Bjarni isn't mentioned at all, and total credit is given to Leif directly for the discoveries. It's a puzzlement. For those wanting clear-cut answers, it's hard to have to depend on the sagas.

 
 

VOYAGE OF LEIF ERIKSON In 999, Leif and his crew went from Greenland to Norway, where he converted to Christianity and was given the mission of introducing the religion to Greenland. According to SRed, which avoids Bjarni entirely, Leif was on his way to Greenland when he, too, was blown off course, landing in Vinland.

 
 

But in SGreen, Leif becomes interested in Bjarni's story and buys his ship from him, hires a crew of 35, and asks Erik to lead the expedition. Erik is reluctant, saying he's too old, yet agrees. But riding to the ship, his horse stumbles, Erik falls and is injured. He considers this a bad sign, and decides to stay home. Thus Erik never got further west than Greenland, and Leif was the one who led the expedition to Vinland. He and his crew set sail from Brattahlið and found the same lands Bjarni had seen, but in the reverse order. Note that Leif would have been following the counterclockwise circular current in the Labrador Sea that so many icebergs follow. This is the counterclockwise loop route (Map by Finn Bjørklid) Leif is believed to have followed.

 
 

First they come to the mountainous land with glaciers and step ashore. Leif names it Helluland ("Flat-Stone Land"), which, it is believed, is Baffin Island. They next come to the level forested land which Leif names Markland ("Wood Land"). It is believed that this is Labrador, which is in the heart of the taiga (treed) climate. He then sails for two days and comes to the hilly forested land, where they decide to stay for the winter. It's believed that this could be Newfoundland. He names it Vinland, which seems to mean Wine Land, because of "grapes" they discovered, but the meaning is debatable (below). It was just after the millennium, and they spent the winter of 1001 in Vinland, where Leif and his men built a small settlement that later visitors from Greenland called Leifsbúdir ("Leif's Booths"). Leif returned to Greenland in the spring with a cargo of "grapes" and timber. Erik had died that winter Leif was in Vinland, and there's no evidence that Leif was aware of the death until he got back to Greenland.

 
 

Archaeological research in the early 1960's identified a Norse settlement on the northern tip of Newfoundland. The site is at L'Anse aux Meadows, and it's been suggested that this is Leif's settlement of Leifsbúdir. Other evidence suggests that this was only the entrance to Vinland, which may have actually been located in areas around the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and that the site at L'Anse aux Meadows was only a way station and ship repair station for travel beyond. The two sagas appear to describe Vinland as having several settlements. SRed mentions a settlement called Straumfjord in the north and one called Hóp in the south.

 
 

While I decided not to arrange to get back to Greenland to visit the Eastern Settlement, I'm intending to go back to Newfoundland in June to visit L'Anse aux Meadows and its vicinity, which I had to skip for lack of time on my first Newfoundland visit in 1984. I have plenty of pictures ready for that posting.

 
 

Leif then returned to Brattahlið, where her mother built her church. By 1025 he passed on his chieftaincy to a son, Thorkell. He probably died in Greenland about this time. Nothing else is known about his family other than that he had another son, Thorgils. While no Norse settlements in Vinland were permanent, for centuries there were still voyages to Markland for timber, foraging, and trade.

 
 

This is the point where Leif's two brothers enter the picture. At Brattahlið, Þorvald Eiriksson discusses Leif's voyage with him and becomes the next to set sail for Vinland, with a crew of 30, using Leif's ship. They spend the winter where Leif had made camp, and in the spring, go exploring, sailing west. After another winter, they explore the north and east of their camp. In a wooded area they find a camp with nine natives, which, as we've said, they called Skrælings. They kill eight (uh-oh!) but one gets away. Later, the natives return with reinforcements and attack. Þorvald is fatally wounded, and is buried in Vinland, and his crew returns to Greenland.

 
 

Þorstein Eiriksson, the third and youngest brother, then sets sail in the same ship with his wife and a crew of 25 for Vinland to retrieve his brother's body. They get lost, sail around the whole summer, and never make it, and return to Greenland. During the winter he falls ill and dies. (We'll discuss the black-sheep daughter shortly.)

 
 

VOYAGE OF ÞORFINN KARLSEFNI The next significant voyage (that we know about) was undertaken close to a decade later by the Icelander Þorfinn Karlsefni, a man of means. In about 1010, he voyaged to Vinland in an attempt to settle it, in three ships with 160 potential settlers. The exact location of his colony is not known, but it is potentially Leif's and Þorvald's old camp excavated at L'Anse aux Meadows. At one point, a group of Skrælings comes visiting wanting to trade hides. They want weapons in exchange but Þorfinn refuses, and they accept dairy products instead. At another time, the Skrælings come again to trade, but this time, one of Þorfinn's men kills one who is reaching for a Norse weapon, and the Skrælings run off. As is feared, they come back in greater numbers, but are fought off. The settlers stay there a while longer, but eventually give up and return to Greenland. There is bronze statue, dedicated in 1920, of Þorfinn Karlsefni by Icelandic sculptor Einar Jónsson in Fairmont Park in Philadelphia, and another casting of it in Reykjavik.

 
 

While in Vinland, sometime between 1010 and 1013, Þorfinn and his wife had a son, Snorri Þorfinnsson, who is considered the first North American born to European (Icelandic) parents. (That is, if you remain prejudiced against Greenland being part of North America and don't consider all the kids born there after 985-6.) Þorfinn made a good profit on the voyage to Vinland and later settled in northern Iceland with his wife and son. You may be tempted to dismiss Snorri as a minor character, but he became one of the most important figures in the Christianization of Iceland, and his descendants (and Þorfinn's) became the first bishops of Iceland. In addition, many Icelanders can trace their roots to him. This statue (Photo by Kathryn Buchanan), located on the family farm in Iceland, shows Snorri being carried on his mother's shoulder in a boat. The seeming incongruity of a major historical figure in Iceland should have been born in what turned out to be a temporary colony in Vinland.

 
 
 The topic of New World first births of Europeans is worth considering. Roughly 560 years would pass after Snorri's birth until the next birth of a child of European descent in America, Martín de Argüelles Jr, who was born in 1566 in the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida. He eventually moved to Mexico and had considerable descendants there.

The first child born in North America to English parents was Virginia Dare, in 1587. She was born in the short-lived Roanoke Colony in what is now North Carolina. What became of her and the other colonists remains a mystery. Her grandfather, the governor of the colony, went back to England the year of her birth for supplies. When he returned three years later, the colony was gone, so Virginia is the only one of the three people mentioned who has no known descendants.
 
 

This is the point where we should insert the unsavory story of Leif's sister, Freydís Eiriksdóttir. The two Vinland Sagas offer extremely differing accounts of her, although in both she appears as a very strong-willed woman. In SRed, Freydís gets to Vinland as a member of Þorfinn's expedition. Her involvement in the saga is when she intervenes in a battle between the Norse and the Skrælings.

 
 

But the story in SGreen is entirely different. After she sees that the expeditions to Vinland by Leif, Þorvald, and Þorfinn met with some success, she wants to organize her own expedition in hopes of wealth and prestige. She partners with two Icelandic men with the understanding that she gets half the profits and they split the other half. Freydís takes more than her half of the agreed-upon number of men with her, and once there, she betrays them and has them and their men attacked while sleeping and killed. Since no one would kill the five women in their group, she personally executes them herself. She threatens to kill anyone who gives her away. After a year, she goes back to Greenland and claims that her two partners had chosen to stay in Vinland. But word gets out, and Leif hears about it. Eventually someone confesses, but Leif, despite the deeds, does not want to condemn his sister to what she deserves for what she has done.

 
 

"Vinland"   Just why is it called "Vinland", usually translated as "Wineland"? There's no definitive answer, but a number of theories. One day, one of the men was found drunk, on what the saga describes as "wine-berries". It's doubted they traveled far enough south to discover actual grapes in quantities. They were unfamiliar with grapes, and it's possible they mistook another type of fruit that became fermented for grapes, perhaps the gooseberry, which grew wild in the area, and which in Old Norse was vinber (rhymes with "[ma]chine care") literally "wine berry". Compare for yourself: this is the green gooseberry (Photo by Kornelia & Hartmut Häfele), the red gooseberry (Photo by Darkone), and cut red gooseberries showing seeds (Photo by Jonathan Cardy).

 
 

Another explanation is that Vinland has nothing to do with wine at all. Apparently, in Old Norse, there were two different words spelled vin, one with a long vowel and one with a short vowel. The one with a long vowel--vin rhymes with "machine"—meant "wine", but the one with the short vowel--vin rhymes with "fin"—meant "meadow" or "pasture", so that Vinland actually means "Meadowland" or "Pastureland". There is no decision on the matter, but apparently recent research that this latter argument yields the more appropriate meaning.

 
 

Summary Map of Voyage Routes   To put all these voyages in perspective, we should look at a map that shows their routes. The clearer of the two that I've found happens to be in French, so we'll be international about it. I'm sure you'll understand all the markings. These are the Greenland and Vinland routes (Map by Masae).

 
 

Start with the black line showing how Erik the Red went from that peninsula in western Iceland to Greenland, and back, as necessary (he also went further up the west coast over time). Red shows Bjarni's route as described in the SGreen, including the clockwise loop in the Labrador Sea. Dark purple shows Leif's non-Bjarni route if you believe the SRed. (I don't know why they show passing today's Atlantic Provinces to go to today's New England.) Blue shows Leif's route if you believe the SGreen, where he followed Bjarni, but counterclockwise in the Labrador Sea. Light purple shows Thorfinn's route from his home in northern Iceland, following Leif counterclockwise, and back to Iceland.

 
 

More insight can be obtained from this map. I always wondered why anyone would go from what I thought was Norway to an odd location such as northern Newfoundland. I now understand that Norway itself has little to do with it. The decisive segment of every single route of significance left from Greenland, specifically Brattahlið in the Eastern Settlement, even if they'd started earlier somewhere else. Newfoundland, and Labrador, too, are "just across the street" from southwestern Greenland, even if many or most of the voyages went by way of Baffin Island. Also, we've only mentioned the voyages across the Labrador Sea that were recorded in the Vinland Sagas. How about all the unrecorded ones, particularly for timber, foraging, and trade? Remember that Norse Greenland existed for five centuries. There must have been numerous unrecorded crossings of the Labrador Sea that we're unaware of, making the Greenlanders more knowledgeable about the northeast coast of North America than we realize.

 
 

On the map, pay particular attention to Leif's voyage in blue. After Baffin Island, he could have made the first right turn into what is now the Hudson Strait and into Hudson Bay. Might others have done so later? Instead, he took the second right turn into the Strait of Belle Isle to set up camp, as we believe, at L'Anse aux Meadows. What if he kept on going and instead took the third right turn down below Newfoundland? Actually, this map indicates that he DID also explore down into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, possibly around both sides of Newfoundland, which brings us to the next point.

 
 

Locating Vinland   While Helluland and Markland are probably Baffin Island and Labrador, respectively, it has never been totally clear just where Vinland is. At the very least, L'Anse aux Meadows is probably only at the entrance to an area that might be called Vinland, perhaps the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. But how was even that determined? In the late 16C, a young Icelandic teacher from Skálholt, Sigurd Stefánsson, tried to use available information to locate Vinland on a map. The result is the Skálholt Map (Map copy by Jörg Schulz). While his 1570 original no longer survives, a 1690 copy does. By comparing Vinland information with the British Isles, his map shows that the northern tip of Vinland is at 51°N, the same latitude as the south coast of Ireland, and Bristol, England. The information was transferred to a more modern map, which showed that the promontory of Vinland corresponded to the northern promontory of Newfoundland. This information is what encouraged the successful archaeological investigations years later, in 1960, at L'Anse aux Meadows, which is at 51°N. Note how the map shows Greenland as a peninsula, and that Vinland is referred to as Skralinge (Skrælingi) Land.

 
 

But we should not be limited to just Newfoundland, which was probably only the gateway to Vinland. Let's take a closer look at the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (Map by Benoit Rochon), which is the world's largest river estuary.

 
 

The Saint Lawrence River, emptying the Great Lakes, enters the Gulf from the west. The Gulf then connects to the open Atlantic by three routes. The smallest one, to the south of the Gulf, is the Strait of Canso between Cape Breton Island and the Nova Scotia peninsula, just 1 km (0.6 mi) wide at its narrowest point. The Strait of Belle Isle, named for the Belle Isle ("Beautiful Island") at its eastern end, is to the northeast of the Gulf, between Labrador and Newfoundland, 17 km (10.6 mi) wide. Finally, the Cabot Strait is on Newfoundland's other side, between it and Cape Breton Island. It's the biggest, 104 km (64.6 mi) wide. It's also the deepest, 480 m (1,575 ft), and this map showing ocean depths indicates that the depth is due to the underwater river channel exiting at this point. It also shows that this entire area is on the continental shelf, including the large area southeast of Newfound, the Grand Banks, one of the richest fishing grounds in the world.

 
 

It would seem that the enclosed, protected waters of the Gulf, with several routes to the sea, including the fish-rich Grand Banks, and easy access through the Strait of Belle Isle back home to Greenland and beyond, would be an extremely likely venue for the location of Vinland. Still, archeological proof needs to be found.

 
 

Long-Distance Routes   But speculation abounds that Vinland might have been much further away from L'Anse aux Meadows, which is the only place relics have been found, and which is possibly just a way station to areas beyond.. The Norse being a seafaring people, the other possibilities continue to involve water routes.

 
 

The Norse could have continued down the Atlantic Coast. Strong suggestions have been made of Cape Cod as a possible site of Vinland. I've also read New York, and even Florida. The archaeologist who discovered L'Anse aux Meadows has also suggested there might have been a North Vinland in Newfoundland and a South Vinland on the New England coast.

 
 

And then there's the Maine penny. It's a Norwegian silver penny dating to the period 1067-1093. A Mainer claimed to have found it in 1957 at a Native American archeological site that has otherwise yielded over 30,000 items to the Maine State Museum. Details of the finding of most of those items are documented, but not of the Maine penny, which was nevertheless also donated. The Museum describes it as the only Norse artifact found that generally is accepted as genuine, but the American Numismatic Society has stated there is no reliable documentation for it, and it should be considered a hoax. The coin is genuine, and, while it dates to a period about a century after the period of L'Anse aux Meadows, it is within the period that the Norse were living in Greenland. Still, such old coins were ready available in the period it was discovered, and it's possible it was planted by the finder, or by someone else to trick the finder as well as everyone else. Could it have been traded by the Norse with natives? Could the Norse have come as far south as today's Maine? The verdict so far is "not proven". Still, when I was at the airport in Iceland, there was an exhibit which included the information that the Norwegian government had issued a commemorative duplicate of its ancient coin celebrating the Maine penny. But the jury remains out on the matter.

 
 

It's also been suggested that at some point, someone did take that first right turn off Baffin Island into the Hudson Strait, and ended up in Hudson Bay. Given that the climate a millennium ago might have been warmer there, that's been suggested as a possible location of Vinland. And then there's the Kensington Runestone.

 
 

The Kensington Runestone is considered a major hoax, "discovered" near Kensington, Minnesota, west of the Twin Cities, by a farmer in 1898, and created in modern times to represent a non-existent pre-Columbian Scandinavian presence in the area in the 14C, three centuries after the Vinland Sagas. The local community promotes the stone, ignoring anything runologists and Scandinavian linguists say to the contrary. The argument is that Norse explorers came down a natural north-south navigation route, which included portages around dangerous rapids, from the Hudson Bay (Map by David Trochos), via either the Nelson or Hayes Rivers, to Lake Winnipeg, to the Red River of the North, to the Minnesota River, to Kensington. The entire concept is wishful thinking, including to some extent on the part of Scandinavian-Americans.

 
 

Commemoration   But putting the hoax aside, there is enthusiasm on the part of people in North America about the early Norse presence. I was recently in the Canadian Parliament, and in the hall were murals of seminal events in Canadian history, and one mural showed the arrival of the Norse, and may have included Leif Erikson.

 
 

The stories of the Norse in North America, and particularly Leif Erikson, have had a considerable effect on the identity and self-perception of those of Scandinavian descent. The first statue of Leif was erected in Boston in 1887, based on the belief that Cape Cod could have been Vinland. Other statues have appeared in Milwaukee, Chicago, Duluth, and Seattle, and this statue of Leif (Photo by Mulad) went up in 1949 in Saint Paul at the Minnesota State Capitol, seen in the background.

 
 

The first official, organized immigration of Norwegians to America apparently took place on 9 October 1825 when the ship Restauration arrived from Stavanger (!!!) in New York harbor. For the centennial of that event in 1925, President Calvin Coolidge stated at the Minnesota State Fair to 100,000 people that Leif was indeed the first to discover America. In addition, that date of 9 October has since been used to remember Leif Erikson in the US. In 1964, the US government proclaimed 9 October each year as "Leif Erikson Day", and on that day in 1968 the US issued its Leif Erikson stamp.

 
 
 
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