- Erikson also spelled:
- Eriksson, Ericson, or Eiriksson
- Old Norse:
- Leifr EirĂksson
- Byname:
- Leif the Lucky
- Flourished:
- 11th century
- Flourished:
- c.1001 - c.1100
- Notable Family Members:
- father Erik the Red
Leif Erikson
Leif Erikson (flourished 11th century) was a Norse explorer widely held to have been the first European to reach the shores of North America. The 13th- and 14th-century Icelandic accounts of his life show that he was a member of an early voyage to eastern North America, although he may not have been the first to sight its coast.
The second of the three sons of Erik the Red, the first colonizer of Greenland, Leif sailed from Greenland to Norway shortly before 1000 to serve among the retainers at the court of Olaf I Tryggvason, who converted him to Christianity and commissioned him to urge that religion upon the Greenland settlers. According to EirĂks saga rauĂ°a (âErik the Redâs Sagaâ), while returning to Greenland in about 1000, Leif was blown off course and landed on the North American continent, where he observed forests with excellent building timber and grapes, which led him to call the new region Vinland (âLand of Wineâ). On his return to Greenland, he proselytized for Christianity and converted his mother, who built the first church in Greenland, at Brattahild, Erik the Redâs estate.
According to the GrĂŠnlendinga saga (âSaga of the Greenlandersâ) in the FlateyjarbĂłk (âBook of the Flat Islandsâ), considered by many scholars to be more reliable in some aspects than EirĂks saga rauĂ°a, Leif learned of the new land to the west from the Icelander Bjarni HerjĂłlfsson, who had been storm-driven there en route to Greenland about 15 years earlier. The saga pictures Leif equipping an expedition to the new land shortly after 1000. He named the new areas according to their qualities: Helluland (âLand of Flat Rocksâ), the Frobisher Bay area in the north (or possibly Cape Chidley on the northern tip of Labrador); Markland (âLand of Forestsâ), most likely the central coast of Labrador; and, farthest south, Vinland, possibly the area surrounding the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Further expeditions to Vinland were later made by Leifâs siblings, Thorstein (whom weather forced to turn back before he reached Vinland), Thorvald, and Freydis, as well as by the Icelander Thorfinn Karlsefni.
