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Erik Thorvaldsson, better known as Erik the Red (950 – 1003), Norwegian Viking, merchant and explorer of the late 10th century. He founded the first Viking settlement in Greenland. He was born in the district of Jæren, Rogaland, Norway. El Rojo's nickname was possibly because he had red hair. Although popular culture credits Erik as the first to discover Greenland (now part of Denmark), the Icelandic sagas suggest that other Norse explorers discovered it and attempted to colonize it before him.
Approximately 982 Erik sailed towards this mysterious and unknown land. He rounded the southern end of the island (later known as Cape Farewell) and sailed up the Western Coast. In time it reached a part of the coast that was reasonably free of ice and therefore had, like Iceland, conditions that gave it a chance of future prosperity and development. According to the aforementioned saga, Erik spent three years of his exile exploring this land. He named it “Greenland” (“Green Land”). The first winter there was spent at Eiriksey, and the second at Eiriksholmar, near Hvarfsgnipa. The following summer he explored the entire coastline as far north as Snaefell and Hrafnsfjord.
After spending the winter in Iceland, Erik returned to Greenland the following summer, in 985 AD, this time with a large number of settlers, who established the first two settlements on the southwestern coast: the eastern settlement (Eystribyggð), in what is now Julianhåb, where Erik had his farm called Brattahlíð, and the western settlement (Vestribyggð), in the present-day Nuuk (over time, a middle settlement developed, but many experts believe it was part of the western one). Both settlements, located on the southwestern coast, turned out to be the only areas where agriculture was possible. During the summer, when the climate was milder, settlers sent armies north to Disko Bay above the Arctic Circle to hunt. Thus, they obtained seal meat, whose skin could also be used as clothing, and ivory from walruses, narwhals or whales stranded on the coast, if they were lucky. It is likely that on these expeditions they would have encountered the Inuit, who did not yet inhabit the eastern part of the island.
History says that Erik and his wife Theodhild had four children: a daughter, Þuríður Eiríksdóttir and three boys, the also famous explorer Leif Eriksson, Thorvald and Thorsteinn. From another marriage he had a daughter, Freydís Eiríksdóttir. Erik was a fervent defender of Norse paganism, unlike his son Leif and his wife, who built the first Christian church in America in the yard of their farm. Despite what has been speculated, it seems unlikely that Leif was the pioneer of Christianity in Greenland. Leif Eriksson became the first Viking and European to explore the land of Vinland, today part of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Legend has it that Leif invited his father for the trip, but that he fell from his horse along the way and, taking this as a bad omen, decided to stay. Erik died the first winter, after the departure of his son.
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