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978: Snæbjörn galti Hólmsteinsson becomes the first Norseman to intentionally navigate to Greenland. 982: The Norwegian-Icelandic viking known as Eric the Red is banished from Iceland. He sails off and sights the island. He decides to name it Greenland to make the island appear more attractive. 986: Norse Settlement of Greenland begins.
Erik the Red's Land (Norwegian: Eirik Raudes Land) was the name given by Norwegians to an area on the coast of eastern Greenland occupied by Norway in the early 1930s. It was named after Erik the Red, the founder of the first Norse or Viking settlements in Greenland in the 10th century.
After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it Grœnland (translated as "Greenland"), supposedly in the hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers. [ 33 ] [ 34 ] [ 35 ] The Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be ...
After two years of exploring, he returns to Iceland and tells of his discoveries, giving Greenland its name as a way to attract settlers. [2] [3] Overwintering in Iceland, Erik sets sail again intending to colonize Greenland. His expedition has 30 ships, but only 14 reach their destination.
The prehistory of Greenland is a story of repeated waves of immigration from the islands north of the North American mainland. (The population of those islands are thought to have descended, in turn, from inhabitants of Siberia who migrated into North America through Beringia thousands of years ago.)
Brattahlíð still has some of the best farmland in Greenland, owing to its location at the inner end of Eriksfjord, which protects it from the cold foggy weather and arctic waters of the outer coast. It has a youth hostel and a small store. More extensive facilities exist in Narsarsuaq across the fjord.
While the diet of the first settlers consisted of 80% agricultural products and 20% marine food, from the 14th century the Greenland Norsemen had 50–80% of their diet from the sea. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] In the Greenlandic Inuit oral tradition , there is a legend about why the Norse population of Hvalsey died out and why their houses and churches are in ...
Hvalsey ("Whale Island"; Greenlandic Qaqortukulooq) is located near Qaqortoq, Greenland and is the site of Greenland's largest, best-preserved Norse ruins in the area known as the Eastern Settlement (Eystribyggð). In 2017, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and part of the Kujataa Greenland site.