Born c. 950,
Stavanger, Norway
Died c. 1004,
Greenland
Erik the Red was a Norse explorer whose most important voyage began as the result of a violent feud. He was banished from his home in Iceland for three years as punishment for killing two men. During this exile, he became the first European to land on Greenland. He later established Norse colonies that endured in Greenland for the next 500 years.
Erik’s travels began early in life. He was born in southwestern Norway near the town of Stavanger. His father became involved in a feud with another family and killed a man. In those days, such a crime was punished with exile in Iceland, which had first been settled by the Norwegians in the 870s. Erik’s family moved to a remote part of western Iceland.
After he was grown and married, Erik himself became involved in a blood feud. In the year 982, he killed two of his enemy’s sons. As punishment, he was banished from the country to live overseas for a period of three years. Erik had heard about the voyages of a man named Gunnbjörn Ulfsson, who had discovered a group of small islands west of Iceland. Ulfsson said that he had seen a much larger land beyond them.
Since Erik was now forced to leave the country, he decided to make the best of the situation and announced that he was going to sail in search of Ulfsson’s land. With a crew of hired men, he sailed due west from the Icelandic peninsula called Snaefellsnes. Erik sighted Gunnbjörn’s Skerries, probably the islands off the coast near the modem town of Angmagssalik in eastern Greenland. Then he landed on the shore of this vast new country at a place he named Midjökull (Middle Glacier).
Because of the pattern of ocean currents, eastern Greenland has a much harsher climate than western Greenland, and Erik did not stay long where he first landed. He sailed south down the coast and around the southern tip of Greenland in search of a more pleasant environment. He landed along the southwest coast at an area that was to become known as the Eastern Settlement (Eystribygd, in the region of what is now Julianehåb or Qaqortoq). He spent the winter on an island he named Erik’s Island.
In the spring of 983, Erik sailed up a nearby fjord that he also named after himself. During the following winter he stayed on the southern tip of Greenland, and then he sailed up the east coast in the spring of 984. He returned once again to Erik’s Island to spend the following winter. By this time, the term of Erik’s banishment from Iceland was complete. He sailed around the southern tip of Greenland and returned safely to his native land in the summer of 985.
It was not long, however, before the blood feud between Erik and his neighbors started again. As a result, Erik began to promote the colonization of his newly found land. He wanted people to move overseas with him, and he called the new country “Greenland” because he thought the name would attract settlers. Greenland must have sounded appealing, because Erik left Iceland in 986 with 14 ships carrying 400 to 500 people as well as domestic animals and household goods.
Erik settled at a place he named Brattahlid (now a trading station called Qagssiarssuk) at the head of Erik’s Fjord, which became the center of the Eastern Settlement. The Western Settlement (around present-day Godthåb or Nuuk) was about 180 miles farther up the coast. There was another, smaller settlement between the Eastern and Western Settlements.
Erik had three sons—Leif, Thorvald, and Thorsteinn—and a daughter named Freydis. One of his sons, Leif Eriksson (see entry), became a famous explorer in his own right. In the year 999, Leif pioneered the first direct route to Norway from Greenland, bypassing Iceland. When Leif voyaged to Vinland in 1001 or 1002, Erik wanted to go with him but fell off his horse on the way to the ship, injuring his leg. Because of this mishap, Erik was unable to accompany Leif on his most famous voyage: Vinland was the name the Norse used for the area of North America, possibly Nova Scotia, that Leif was first to visit.
Erik and Leif had a disagreement after one of Leif’s voyages. While in Norway, Leif converted to Christianity. He later brought the first Christian missionary to Greenland. Erik believed in the Viking religion and was not pleased with his son’s role in bringing Christianity to Greenland. Erik died sometime during the winter of 1003-04. Ironically, although he never accepted Christianity, he was buried on the grounds of what became the Christian cathedral at Brattahlid.
The Norse Greenland settlements prospered for a while, but later they were afflicted by a change in the climate. The weather grew much colder and was no longer suitable for European farming practices. More ice began to form in the ocean, and this made travel back and forth to Iceland more difficult. The last recorded voyage between Iceland and Greenland was made in 1410, although it is likely that there were some later trips. The settlers faced other difficulties. The Inuit, or indigenous people, advancing from the north, are thought to have destroyed the Western Settlement around 1350. The last Norsemen in the Eastern settlement probably disappeared sometime in the early sixteenth century. By the time English navigator and explorer Martin Frobisher saw the coast of Greenland in 1576, the colonies that Erik the Red established had disappeared.
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