Today is Leif Eriksson Day

Erik the Red was the founder of the first Norse settlement in what is now Greenland. His second of

three sons, Leif Eriksson (known as Leif the Lucky), traveled to Norway sometime around 1000 A.D. where he was converted to Christianity by King Olaf I Tryggvason. During this voyage it is believed that he stopped in the Hebrides and while there had a son, Thorgils, with Thorgunna, the daughter of a local chief. He was sent by to Greenland with a commission to spread the faith there. On his return trip, his ship was blown off course and landed on the North American continent. He named the region Vinland due to the abundance of wild grapes that grew there.

In “The Saga of the Greenlanders,” (Groenlendinga) it is said that Erik had heard of the region from Icelandic trader Bjarni Herjulfsson, who had observed the land from his ship years before but never explored the region. He spent the winter in Vineland and then returned to Greenland. As such, he is believed to be the first European to reach North America, nearly 400 years prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

The exact location of Eriksson’s landing is not known but it is thought that he made at least three landings at Labrador, Newfoundland, and Vinland. Excavations at the northernmost part of Newfoundland in the 1960’s revealed evidence of an 11^th century Viking camp.

When Leif returned to Greenland he was unable to convert his father to Christianity although his mother, Thjodhild, did convert and is credited with building Greenland’s first Christian church at Brattahild.

Upon Erik the Red’s death, Leif assumed the title of Chief and ruled the settlement.

In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge announced that Eriksson had been the first European to explore America. In 1964 a Congressional resolution authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to officially declare October 9 as “Leif Eriksson Day.”