The Vikings in Greenland

The story

A green land, but not too green

When Erik the Red arrived in the south of Greenland, around 985, he found a coast very different from the rest of the island, which is covered almost entirely by an immense ice cap. In the deep bays, sheltered from the winds, there were however green meadows, birch and willow bushes, and the climate, a little warmer than usual in that period, made it possible to raise animals. To attract settlers from Iceland, which was filling up, Erik called that land “Greenland”, that is, “green land”.

In 986 a fleet of about twenty-five ships set out from Iceland with men, women and livestock. Fourteen arrived; the others turned back or sank. Two settlements were founded: the Eastern Settlement, the larger, in the area now called Qaqortoq and Narsaq, and the Western Settlement, farther north, near present-day Nuuk. Erik took the best place for himself, a large farm which he called Brattahlíð, “the steep slope”, at the head of a fjord.

Life on the farm

The Norse families lived in long houses of stone and turf, with grass roofs, warmed by a fire and shared with the animals during the winter. They raised sheep, goats, cows and pigs, and gathered hay for the winter. But the land was scarce, and in summer the young men set off by boat to the north, to the hunting grounds, to catch seals, walruses and polar bears. Their most valuable products were walrus tusks, an ivory in great demand in Europe, hides, and gyrfalcons, northern birds of prey much sought after, which were sold to nobles.

In exchange the Norse bought iron, timber, grain and luxury goods from ships that came from Norway. There were few of them: historians estimate that in the best periods a few thousand people lived in the two settlements, with hundreds of farms and at least fifteen or so churches.

The ships that kept contact with Europe were the “knarrs”, broad, sturdy cargo vessels under sail, with far more room than the long warships. The voyage from Norway to Greenland took weeks and went by way of Iceland, and so every ship that arrived was an event: it brought news, tools and sometimes new settlers.

A church at Brattahlíð and a cathedral

After the year 1000 the Greenlanders converted to Christianity. Erik's wife, Thjodhild, according to the sagas had a small church built at Brattahlíð; archaeologists have found its remains, small, surrounded by a graveyard, and in the 20th century a copy was rebuilt. In 1124 a bishop was appointed, with his seat at Garðar, where a cathedral of red stone was built. Some churches, such as the one at Hvalsey, can still be seen as ruins.

The silence

From the 14th century news becomes rare. The climate grew colder, in what historians call the “Little Ice Age”: hay harvests dwindled, the seas filled with ice and Norwegian ships arrived less and less. The market for walrus ivory collapsed when elephant ivory reached Europe. Meanwhile the Inuit, the hunters of the Arctic, arrived from the north with their culture suited to the cold. The Western Settlement was abandoned around 1350.

The last written record is the account of a wedding, held in the church at Hvalsey in 1408. After that, nothing. When, in 1721, the Dano-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede arrived in Greenland, hoping to find descendants of the Norse, he found only ruins. Historians still argue about the causes: the cold, the loss of contact with Europe, the overuse of pastures, the difficulty of changing their way of life as the Inuit did. There is no single answer.