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Arctic People
T
hese low stone walls built about 986 are all that remain of the Viking houses
in Greenland. They were built by settlers with Erik the Red.
A Viking called Erik the Red was banished from
Iceland in 982 for killing a man. The Viking stories told of
lands to the west, so he decided to sail out to see if he could
find them. After sailing for many days Erik sighted the
snowy mountains of a new land.
Greenland
Erik’s banishment was for three years. During the summers
he explored the coast of this new land. In the winters he
built a settlement. After the three years had passed he
returned to Iceland. He wanted to encourage more people
to come to his settlement, which he first called Eriksfjord.
But he changed it Greenland to make it sound attractive.
Twenty-five ships set out for Greenland in 986, but
only 14 arrived. The others were lost at sea. The
settlers
built stone houses with turf roofs near the sea shore. They
farmed cattle and sheep. They also caught fish and hunted
seals and walrus. These activities gave them goods to trade
with Europeans for grain. They met and traded with Inuit
who had inhabited Greenland for thousands of years. But
the Vikings never learned how to live off the land like the
Inuit. Instead, each year a ship came from Norway,
bringing them food they could not grow in Greenland.
Starved to Death
The Vikings came to Greenland during
a period of warm winters and hot
summers. About 1300, the weather
became cooler and the winters longer.
The settlement in Greenland had a
terrible time. Calves born in winter
were sickly and fewer seals came in
summer. The supply ship from Norway
came less and less often because more
ice filled the seas. Finally the Vikings in
Greenland all died.
The efforts of the Vikings in Green-
land and North America were soon
forgotten. It was another 300 years before
Europeans “rediscovered” these lands.
The Traveling Abbot
Stories tell of an abbot, St. Brendan from
Ireland, who sailed to Iceland about
500. With 17 monks, he sailed in a large
open boat made like a wicker basket and
covered in oxhide. They carried wine
and food for their journey, which took
them to several islands on the edge of
the Arctic. Tim Severin, a modern
explorer, copied this voyage of St.
Brendan in 1976 to see if it was possible.
It was!