When his exile was over, he returned to Iceland and recruited colonists to settle on the island, which he gave the enticing name of Greenland. In 986, he led an expedition to Greenland with hundreds of settlers. They established their farms along Greenland's southwestern coast, raising livestock on the rich pasture.
Neither Greenland nor Iceland had much timber, arable land, or metal for tools and weapons. They did, however, have abundant wildlife on both land and sea. Settlers obtained furs and hides, whalebone and walrus ivory to trade for the goods they needed. Soon traders in merchant ships were plying the waters between Greenland, Iceland, and the Norwegian mainland.
Viking sailors gave storms a wide berth, sometimes veering well out of their way to avoid them. As a result it was not uncommon to get lost or to be blown off course. In fact, it was one such lost sailor, Gunnbjorn, whose reports of land sighted to the west had led Erik on his explorations. When the Greenland settlement was only a few months old, another sailor, Bjarni Herjolfsson, went out from Norway in his trading ship to visit his father in Iceland.
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