Legendary Islands of the Atlantic: A Study of Medieval Geography

by William Henry Babcock

Explorations of Early Greenlanders

But in seamanship and exploration their achievements, considering their numbers and resources, were really wonderful. All experts agree that Eric’s first exploration was daring, skillful, persistent, and exhaustive, according to the best modern standards, and that his selection of settlement sites was exceedingly judicious; in fact, could not have been improved upon. Then followed in less than twenty years the discovery of the American mainland by Eric’s son Leif (or, as some say, by one Biarni, followed by Leif) and a series of other voyages, including Thorfinn Karlsefni’s prolonged effort to colonize, involving the tracing of the American coast line from at least upper Labrador to some point south of Newfoundland. The precise lower limit is matter of dispute, but, according to the better opinion, may be found somewhere on the front of southern New England. These were followed in 1121 by the missionary journey, as it seems to have been, of Bishop Eric Gnupsson, who then sailed out of Greenland for Vinland, we do not know with what result. Subsequent communication with parts of the American continent was probably not uncommon, as has been inferred from the accidental arrival in 1347 of a ship which had sailed from Greenland to Markland and been storm-driven from the latter westward. It pursued its course to Norway.

In the opposite (northern) direction we know of at least two venturesome voyages up Baffin Bay, and, as the records have reached us almost by accident, we may naturally conjecture many more.

A British exploring expedition in 1824 acquired a small stone inscribed with runic characters near some beacons on an island north of Upernivik on the upper northwestern coast of Greenland. The original is lost, but a duplicate of it is preserved in the Copenhagen National Museum. Divers copies[195] have been published. The inscription is thought to date from about 1300, translated by various runologists, with differences in detail. As given by Professor Hovgaard, it reads:

Erling Sigvatsson and Bjarne Thordarson and Endride Oddson built this (or these) beacon(s) Saturday after “Gagnday” (April 25th) and cleared (the place) (or made the inscription) 1135 (?).

The year is reported with some uncertainty; and it must be owned that the body of the text offers several alternatives. Such a memorial would more naturally be put up by the men who built the beacons or those of about their time than by a later generation to commemorate the not vitally important doings of those who were dead and gone. The year 1300 seems a little late for venturing so far, as it was about the beginning of a period of decadence and less than forty years before the Western Settlement vanished altogether. The date 1135 would better accord with the climax of Norse strenuousness and Greenland adventure. Perhaps the runes were carved in the stone earlier than the runologists suppose. But, whether the original visit took place in the twelfth century or the fourteenth, and whether the stone denotes two Norse visits to this place or only one, it is still conclusive that some Greenlanders had explored well to the northward along the shore of Baffin Bay in the time of the old colony.

A more extensive exploration was undertaken in 1266 by the clergy, apparently of the Bishop’s seat, since they traveled home to Gardar. It appears that certain men had been farther north than usual but reported no sign of previous occupancy by the Eskimos (who seem by this time to have awakened some concern among the Norsemen) except at the unusually broad reindeer-pasture land and hunting ground of Krogfiordsheath, a little below Disko Bay. This made a good starting point for the ship, which was thereupon sent “northward in order to explore the regions north of the farthest point which they had hitherto visited,” apparently with a special view of getting more light on the whereabouts of the heathen and their line of approach. In these regards the adventure was barren; but the narrative of one of the priests is interesting so far as it goes:[196]

... they sailed out from Krogfiordsheath, until they lost sight of the land. Then they had a south wind against them and darkness, and they had to let the ship go before the wind; but when the storm ceased and it cleared up again, they saw many islands and all kinds of game, both seals and whales and a great number of bears. They came right into the sea-bay and lost sight of all the land, both the southern coast and the glaciers; but south of them were also glaciers as far as they could see.

That was their farthest point. They then sailed southward, reaching Krogfiordsheath again and eventually Gardar. On the way they had noticed some abandoned Eskimo houses but no living Eskimos.

There is some attempt to indicate latitude by the way shadows fell in a boat. Also we are told, apparently meaning midsummer or a little later: “at midnight the sun was as high as at home in the settlement when it is in northwest.” But speculations as to their course and distance have given varying results. Some think they may even have passed into Smith Sound; others that they may have crossed the Middle Water to the western shore of Baffin Bay, seeing south of them the glaciers of northeastern Baffin Land; others still that they did not get very far above Upernivik; but, whatever the exact limit, it seems to have been a notable bit of Arctic exploration, prosecuted rather at random and with scant resources.