Leif Eriksson

Biography

Leif Eriksson was the son of Erik the Red and the man who reached North America roughly five centuries before Columbus. He grew up in Greenland after his father's settlement there and appears to have spent time at the Norwegian court of Olaf Tryggvason, who converted him to Christianity and sent him back to bring the faith to Greenland. His mother converted; his father did not. Around the year 1000, Leif led an expedition westward from Greenland, following the reports of Bjarni Herjólfsson, who had seen wooded land to the west without stopping. Leif sailed in the opposite direction from Bjarni's original course, made landfall in at least three places — rocky Helluland (probably Baffin Island), forested Markland (probably Labrador), and finally Vinland, where they wintered before returning. The Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland, excavated by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad beginning in 1960, provides the archaeological confirmation. Leif himself made only one voyage to Vinland. Subsequent expeditions — including a colonization attempt by Thorfinn Karlsefni — followed but eventually failed. The failure was not geographical: the land was genuinely excellent for settlement. It was demographic and tactical: the Norse had too few people in Greenland to support an overseas colony against indigenous resistance. Leif had found a continent and couldn't hold it.

Key Battles