fl. 1000-1015

Icelandic Explorer

Thorfinn Karlsefni attempted the first permanent European settlement in America.

Thorfinn was the great-grandson of Thord Bjarnarson, one of the original settlers of Iceland. Thord's third son, Snorri Thordarson, married Thorhild Ptarmigan Thordardóttir, daughter of the powerful chieftain Thord Gellir Olafsson. Snorri and Thorhild's son, Thord Horse-Head Snorrason, and Thorunn, his wife, were the parents of Thorfinn Thordarson. The sobriquet "Karlsefni," by which he is commonly known, must have been given him when he was quite young, because it means something like "auspicious boy." The family's home was at Höfdi on Skagafjord in the North Quarter of Iceland.

Karlsefni became a wealthy merchant. Sometime in the first decade of the eleventh century, he and his partner, Snorri Thorbrandsson, and Bjarni Grimolfsson and his partner, Thorhall Gamlason, all Icelanders, sailed two merchant ships with 80 men to the settlement of...