Leif Erikson

Even in statue form, Norsemen
are pretty intimidating. 

When I thought to do a blog on Leif Erikson (Eriksson? Ericson?), I was hoping that the wikipedia page would be filled with crazy adventures, battles, and maybe some pillaging that the Vikings are so strongly associated with. While I'm not super disappointed, I was hoping for a little more violence rather than chats with merchants and going to Newfoundland. Heck, I can do that nowadays. Either way, he's still an important figure in the sense that you can correct people who say Columbus was the first European to head on over to the New World. While you're on the topic, you might as well note that Columbus also landed closer to South America and the islands in and around Cuba. Man, I wish my mistakes landed me in the Bahamas...

Anyways, Leif was born sometime around 970 A.D., about 500 years before our pal Columbus. He was the son of Erik the Red, an explorer who was famed with the colonization of Greenland - which may or may not be colonized today. Born in Iceland, he married his wife Thjodhild, which has no significant importance to his history but serves to show that the women of ancient Norse lands were not named in an effeminate manner.

A painting of the voyage. The ship was helmed
by a number of well-bearded gentlemen.

He was charged with bringing Christianity to Greenland, in which permanent settlements were just beginning. On a trip back from Norway (from where he was given the order to do so) he was blown off course and landed in what he would later call Vinland - likely on the northern tip of what is now Newfoundland. What's interesting is he wasn't the first one there - he's likely just credited as such. As the stories go, and in all fairness who is to say how accurate they may be, he rescued two shipwrecked Norseman who had crashed there previously. This, of course, is pretty crazy to think about - the names of the men who may have been the first Europeans to see the New World were, first off, accidentally there, and second, completely forgotten to history as they hadn't realized just how big a deal it was. It makes you think.

A recreation of how the settlement may have looked.
That, or a Lord of the Rings set for a hobbit town.

What's important is the land there was mighty fine. There was wheat, grapevines, and plenty of fish - so basically all the luxuries that Greenland doesn't have. Greenland can offer snow. They have snow. So naturally, after returning from the new found land, he took thirty-five men and sailed back to find this wonderful new place. According to his descriptions, they likely landed in Baffin Island first, then likely Labrador before finally settling in Vinland (Newfoundland). They brought back the spoils of the land in the form of timber, grapes and whatever else they could take. Overall, it was largely a successful mission, and they had a small settlement built there that upon its discovery in modern times would be called L'Anse aux Meadows, likely where they planted themselves. However, it could have been just one settlement for ship repair amongst a number of small places. As typical with history, it's not entirely known.

After he had his ship full of lumber, which is pretty much as good as gold in Greenland, he sailed back. He didn't return, but his brother did, this time with a much larger expedition. They stayed for a while but ran into some trouble with the Natives who skirmished back and forth on occasion, and eventually found that between the attacks and bad weather it wasn't worth it to stay. That being said, Vikings did return off and on for the next several hundred years, with Native interactions not always being negative.

I hope there's a hockey team in Canada somewhere in a town named after Vinland. They could call their team the Maple Leifs.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "Now prepared they their ship, and sailed out into the sea when they were ready, and then found that land first which Bjarne had found last." I'm reaching for quotes here. This was obviously said about Leif, as they're about to set off on their journey to return to the new land. Bjarne was a merchant who said he had seen the land previously (although did not land - again, I guess you could say he discovered it before Leif as well.)
2. "Leif gave the land a name after its qualities, and called it Vinland, or Wineland." See? Grapes. This was taken from his... well, you can't call it a biography. It was written about his exploits though... Diary? Journal? Adventure book? You name it. Either way, there were a lot of grapes there and he was totally stoked about it.