Leif Erickson

Introduction:

Leif Erikson, known as Leif the Lucky, was a Norse explorer during the Viking Age. He preceded
Christopher Columbus as one of the first European explorers to reach North America by nearly 500
years.

Leif Erikson was born around 970 CE in Iceland, the son of Erik the Red, the founder of Norse
settlements in Greenland. He learned seamanship and navigation skills through extensive travel
and married Thorgunna, with whom he had a son named Thorgils.

Where he explored
Leif arrived in an unexplored land where the first thing that caught his attention were the wild
vines, so he named it Vinlandia (land of wine). One day today, it is believed that it could be the
island of Newfoundland, in Canada.

Before that, his tripulation sighted Baffin´s island, and later Labrador and then what is believed to
be Newfoundland. Leif named the country Vinland(where the first thing that caught his attention
were the wild vines, so he named it Vinlandia (land of wine) and built a settlement there. Visitors
later called it Leifsbudir. Modern archaeologists believe that this settlement, in the far north of
Newfoundland, is also called L'Anse aux Meadows. Other archaeologists place the Leif settlement
around the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and believe that L'Anse aux Meadows was simply a shipyard.
Leif stayed in Vinland for the winter and then sailed back to Greenland with timber and grapes.
All this could have remained a myth; However, in 1960, thanks to the findings of Danish
archaeologists, the remains of a house of Viking origin were found. This finding triggered the
investigation and the appearance of other dwellings and several pieces that do not correspond to
any indigenous population, and that through carbon 14 tests have been dated around the year
1010 AD. c.

The name of the indigens was “Skræling”

Methods and tools

Among the tools he used are:

the nautical astrolabe, the quadrant, the cross-staff, the altimetric scale, the hourglass and the
nautical probe.

Something curious
Around the year 1000, the Norwegian Bjarni Herjilfsson sighted the coast of America around the
year 986, but did not land on it, since his original destination was Greenland.

Leif was strongly motivated by the curiosity that this story generated in him, and that motivated
him to explore that land.