[94] Edward Everett Ayer, of Chicago, son of Mr. and Mrs. Elbridge G. Ayer, has long been connected with enterprises relating to arts and letters. He is a director of the Newberry Library, of the Field Museum, and of the Art Institute. He himself has one of the finest private libraries in the United States which contains manuscripts relating to the early history of North America, the Indians, Mexico, the West Indies, and the Philippines.
DESCRIPTION OF A JOURNEY TO NORTH AMERICA
FOREWORD
By Rasmus B. Anderson
I have been asked to prepare a brief introduction for Ole Nattestad’s description of his journey from Norway to America in 1837. In complying with this request I shall make free use of facts and statements published by me in various other works and particularly in my First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration (1906).
The Norsemen have an honorable place in the annals of America. We may, indeed, say that the civilized history of this country begins with the Norsemen. If you look at a map you will at once find that Greenland and even a part of Iceland belong to the western hemisphere, and Iceland became the hinge upon which the door swings that opens America to Europe. It was the occupation of Iceland by the Norsemen in the year 874 and the frequent voyages between this island and Norway that led to the discovery and settlement first of Greenland and then of America, and it is due to the culture and fine historical taste of the Icelanders that carefully prepared records of these Norse voyages were kept, first to teach pelagic navigation to Columbus and afterwards to solve for us the mysteries concerning the first discovery of this continent.
The old republican Vikings well understood the importance of studying the art of ship-building and of navigation. They knew how to measure time by the stars and how to calculate the course of the sun and moon. They were themselves pioneers in venturing out upon the high seas and taught the rest of the world to navigate the ocean. Every scrap of written history sustains me when I say that the other peoples
of the world were limited in their nautical knowledge to coast navigation. The Norse Vikings who crossed the stormy North Sea, finding their way to Great Britain, to the Orkneys, the Faröes, and to Iceland, all those heroes who found their way to Greenland and Vinland, taught the world pelagic navigation. They demonstrated the possibility of venturing out of sight of land, and in this sense, if in no other, we may with perfect propriety assert that the Norsemen taught Columbus how to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
That the Norsemen held an honorable place in the annals of America is shown by a fact of the greatest importance in the world’s history, namely, that the Norsemen anticipated by five centuries Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucius and the new world was discovered by Leif Erikson in the year 1000. About the year 860 the Norsemen discovered Iceland and soon afterwards (in 874) they established upon this island a republic which flourished for 400 years. Greenland was seen for the first time in 876 by Gunnbjorn Ulfson from Norway. About a century later, in the year 984, Erik the Red resolved to go in search of the lands in the west which Gunnbjorn as well as others later had seen. He sailed from Iceland, and found a land as he had expected, and remained there exploring the country for two years. At the end of this period he returned to Iceland, giving the newly-discovered country the name of Greenland in order, as he said, to attract settlers who would be favorably impressed with so pleasing a name. Thus, as Greenland belongs geographically wholly to America, it will be seen that Erik the Red was the first white man to boom American real estate. And he was successful. Many Norsemen emigrated, particularly from Iceland, and a flourishing colony with Gardar as its capital and Erik the Red as its first governor was established and became the first settlement of Europeans in the new world. In the year 1261 it became subject to the crown of Norway. We have a list of seventeen bishops who served