Settlement of Greenland

Erik the Red · 982 CE – 986 CE · Earth

Settlement of Greenland — Erik the Red · 982 CE – 986 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Find the land Gunnbjörn Ulfsson had seen west of Iceland and, after three winters exploring it, bring settlers there.

Historical context

By the 980s the land of Iceland had long been claimed, and late arrivals such as Erik’s family held poor farms, Birgitta Wallace writes. Outlawed for killings, Erik went to look for the land Gunnbjörn had seen to the west, and came back to lead settlers there. The south-west fjords were empty when they came: Paleo-Inuit of the Dorset culture had lived on Greenland’s coasts long before, and the Thule, ancestors of today’s Inuit, reached the south only from the late thirteenth century. The story comes from Ari’s Íslendingabók of the 1120s, from Landnámabók and from two sagas written down later still.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Outlawed in Iceland

    982 CE

    After a feud over killings and borrowed seat-beams, Erik Thorvaldsson is outlawed at the Thórsnes Thing and readies a ship in Breiðafjörður to look for the land Gunnbjörn had seen in the west.

  2. West from Snæfellsnes

    982 CE

    Erik puts to sea under the Snæfellsjökull glacier and steers west, towards the land Gunnbjörn had sighted.

  3. Sighting Greenland

    982 CE

    He makes land at Midjökull, the middle glacier, later known as Bláserkr, ‘Blue-shirt’, on the east coast, then follows the coast south to see whether the country can be settled.

  4. Rounding the southern cape

    983 CE

    He works round the southern tip the Norse called Hvarf and spends three winters exploring the fjords of the south-west, naming places as he goes.

  5. The settlement fleet sails

    986 CE

    Back in Iceland, Erik loses one more fight with Thorgest, makes peace with him, and the next summer leads a settlement fleet west: of twenty-five ships by Landnámabók, thirty-five in the Greenlanders’ saga, fourteen ships arrive.

  6. Up Eiriksfjord

    986 CE

    The settlers share out the fjords of the south-west, each naming a fjord after himself, while some sail on to what became the Western Settlement.

  7. Brattahlíð founded

    986 CE

    Erik makes his home at Brattahlíð, ‘the steep slope’, in Eiriksfjord, the chief farm of the Eastern Settlement, where his wife Thjodhild later had a church built.

Outcome

Explored the south-west coast for three winters, named the land Greenland and, in 985 or 986, led twenty-five ships west, of which fourteen arrived; Erik made his home at Brattahlíð in Eiriksfjord, in what became the Eastern Settlement.

Erik the Red

Norse explorer exiled from Iceland who founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland.

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Sources

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