Around the year 985 A.D., Icelandic exile Erik the Red, a man renowned for his fiery temper, founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland. Years later, his ambitious son Leif Erikson went on to become one of the first known Europeans to set foot in North America – centuries before Columbus.
In this episode, we dive into the real history of Greenland’s Norse origins, the legends of Vinland, and the first confirmed European site in North America at L’Anse aux Meadows. Who exactly were these seafaring Norse explorers? How did Greenland get its name? And how on earth did they survive (and thrive) in such inhospitable conditions?
Amid the modern mythmaking of Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla and the cultural misunderstandings around Greenland thanks to one Donald J. Trump, we unpack the reality of this father-son duo’s epic travels as they got further and further from their Scandinavian homeland; how they created a fragile Norse colony built on trade (including walrus ivory), got incredibly lucky with the climate during the Medieval Warm Period, and why they failed to settle North America once landing on its shores.
We also take a little detour to discuss Freydís Eiríksdóttir, Leif’s formidable sister (whose bare-breasted sword posturing in the sagas shows she wasn’t exactly a believer in the art of making friends and influencing people), and discuss how Norse encounters with those they called skrælingjar* foreshadowed later patterns of contact and conflict with Arctic indigenous peoples.
Plus: how to travel to Greenland and Newfoundland today, visit Norse ruins, and follow the route of the brave (and occasionally reckless) Vikings who sailed beyond the limits of their world.
Warning: This word is a pejorative term for Indigenous people and appears in the episode in quotations from the Icelandic Sagas or in contexts that reflect Norse attitudes toward some of the people they encountered.
