Around the year 1000, Norse sailors reached the shores of North America, nearly five centuries before Columbus made his famous crossing. For roughly twelve thousand years, the Americas and Eurasia had developed entirely apart, each side unaware of the other’s existence. The Vikings who bridged that gap came from Greenland and Iceland, and their encounters with the native peoples of the New World were far from peaceful. Their time there was short, their settlements few, and their legacy survived mostly through saga and legend.
The story begins with Erik the Red, a man of violent temper who was exiled from Iceland for three years after killing someone. During his banishment, he explored and found a cold, unforgiving land that he shrewdly named Greenland to attract settlers. The ploy worked, and several thousand Vikings eventually made the island their home. Erik later heard reports from a trader who had been blown off course while sailing from Iceland to Greenland, claiming there was strange land further west.
Erik’s son, Leif Erikson, was captivated by the tale. Around 1000 AD, Leif sailed west with thirty-five men to see if this mysterious land truly existed. It did. He and his crew set up camp in a place now believed to be Newfoundland.
There, according to the sagas, Leif’s foster father, Tyrker, became utterly intoxicated on grapes. Scholars suspect he may have eaten fermented berries or wild currants that grew in the area. Leif and his men did not stay long; they eventually returned to Greenland, and no records describe any contact with native peoples during this first expedition. There is some evidence, however, that Greenland Norse met indigenous people closer to home.
Archaeological sites belonging to the Thule, ancestors of the Inuit, contain carved ivory figurines depicting Norsemen, along with iron and bronze tools the Thule could not have produced themselves. The Viking word for the native peoples, “Skraeling,” likely came from the Old Norse term skrá, meaning dried skin, a probable reference to the animal hides worn by the Inuit ancestors. Leif’s brother Thorvald led the second expedition a few years later. He and his men spent the winter at the camp Leif had established, and in the spring they came across nine native people sleeping under skin-covered boats.
The Vikings attacked, killing all but one. That survivor escaped and returned with reinforcements. A battle followed, and Thorvald was struck and killed by an arrow. Despite the hostility, the Norse remained for another winter before sailing home to Greenland.
A few more years passed before another Norseman made the voyage. Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy merchant of distinguished lineage, organized a far larger expedition than the Erikson brothers had attempted. With three ships and between 160 and 250 men and women, along with livestock, he sailed deeper into the unknown. The party settled at a place called Straumfjord, where they encountered more Skraelings.
At first, relations were peaceful. The two groups traded, with the native people exchanging furs for red cloth and tasting a strange liquid, milk, which came from the cattle the Vikings had brought. But the peace did not last. Tensions mounted, and hostilities broke out into open fighting.
According to one account, a bull from the Viking camp broke loose and frightened a group of native people. They fled, but soon returned in greater numbers, ready for battle. They attacked the Vikings with catapults, and a legendary fight erupted. For Thorfinn and his would-be colony, it was the breaking point.
The settlers abandoned the site and returned to Greenland. After that, no European attempted to settle the New World for centuries. Physical evidence for these expeditions is scarce, but what exists is remarkable. The most significant discovery came in the 1960s, when Norwegian husband-and-wife archaeologists Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad combed the northeastern coast of Canada searching for traces of the places described in the sagas.
At the northern tip of Newfoundland, they found what they were looking for. L’Anse aux Meadows is the only confirmed Viking settlement in North America. The site contains the remains of eight turf houses, evidence of ironworking that native peoples could not have done, and a framework for boat repairs. Experts believe the site likely served as a ship-repair station, partly because of the physical evidence and partly because it sits at an ideal crossing point on the North Atlantic route to Greenland.
One small but crucial artifact confirms the site’s identity: a bronze pin ending in a ring, used to fasten a cloak at the neck. It is unmistakably Viking. Identical pins have been found at Norse sites in Scotland and Ireland, all dating to between 920 and 1050 AD. Another rare piece of physical evidence appeared far to the south, on a beach in Brooklyn, Maine.
In August 1957, amateur archaeologist Guy Mellgren found an unusual old coin. At first, he suspected it was a medieval British penny, but in 1978 experts identified it as Norwegian, minted between 1065 and 1093. The site where it was found, called the Goddard site, contained an enormous number of arrowheads, prompting speculation that the coin’s arrival coincided with the introduction of archery technology among local native peoples, perhaps learned from Viking visitors. The Maine penny has met with considerable skepticism, partly because of past hoaxes involving purported Viking discoveries in North America, including a forged map and a faked runestone found in Minnesota.
But the Norwegian coin has withstood expert scrutiny and bears the marks of having been buried for centuries. Much of what is known about these expeditions comes from two sagas: the Saga of Erik the Red and the Saga of the Greenlanders, collectively known as the Vinland Sagas. Both were written down hundreds of years after the events they describe. They differ in some details but tell essentially the same story of Norse settlement in North America.
Still, the precise locations of their landfalls remain a mystery. The sagas mention three main places: Helluland, meaning land of flat stones, furthest north; Markland, meaning land of forests, in the middle; and Vinland, meaning land of wine, to the south. Scholars have speculated about where these places were, based on their descriptions. Helluland may be Baffin Island in Canada’s Nunavut territory, Markland is thought to be Labrador, and Vinland is believed to be Newfoundland.
The exact location of Thorfinn’s camp, Straumfjord, is even more uncertain. The sagas describe strong currents, high tides, natural harbor coves, rugged rocks on the horizon, a winter sun that rose mid-morning and set mid-afternoon, and so many nesting birds that it was hard to avoid stepping on their eggs. Proposed locations range from the Bay of Fundy and L’Anse aux Meadows in Canada, to Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts, and as far south as Long Island Sound in New York. The final mystery is why the Vikings did not stay.
Why could these formidable warriors not hold on in the Americas for more than a few years? Why did they never put down roots? Many explanations have been offered. Perhaps their expeditions were too small and under-supplied.
Perhaps hostile native peoples drove them out. But one leading theory concerns the weather. During the eleventh century, when Leif, Thorvald, and Thorfinn made their voyages, the climate was warmer. This period, known as the Medieval Warm Period, brought milder summers and less Arctic sea ice.
Then conditions changed. Beginning in the twelfth century, a cooling trend called the Little Ice Age lowered temperatures and increased ice, making many sea routes impassable. Life in Greenland and Iceland became brutally difficult. Evidence points to food shortages and epidemics.
Between 1250 and 1700, Iceland’s population collapsed from 150,000 to just 50,000. The Viking presence in North America was brief. What remains of it has become legend, told through sagas that may be historical fact, mythic invention, or a mixture of both. The physical proof amounts to a single small settlement, a bronze pin, and a silver coin.
Yet it is remarkable to consider what might have happened had they stayed. The Norse came, they clashed with the people of the New World, and within a few short years, they were gone.