The first Nordic inhabitants had already settled in Iceland in the 870s. It was also from Iceland that Erik the Red set sail in 982 to explore the southern and western parts of Greenland.

However, it is likely that Norse people were already aware of Greenland’s existence around the year 900, after ships traveling between Norway and Iceland were blown off course and spotted small rocky islands off the eastern coast of the giant island, as described in the Icelandic Landnamsbok.

Erik the Red was born in Norway, but after his father, Thorvald, was declared an outlaw, the family emigrated to the Westfjords of Iceland. However, Erik soon came into conflict with his neighbors and killed two of them, leading to him also being declared an outlaw and forced to leave his farm.

It was during this time in exile that Erik the Red, according to the sagas, took the opportunity to explore more closely the land he had heard stories about, and which Snaebjörn Hólmsteinsson had also tried unsuccessfully to attract settlers to a few years earlier. Erik also discovered that parts of the island seemed to have a milder climate similar to that of Iceland

When his time as an outlaw was over, he returned to solicit volunteer settlers and in this recruitment process, the fertile-sounding name “Greenland” is said to have been coined, as a kind of counterpart to the “Iceland” the inhabitants were now being asked to leave.

Thousands of Scandinavians

The bold Viking apparently managed to promote the new land successfully. According to the sagas, he left Iceland with 25 ships and an estimated 700 Norse settlers. As many as 11 ships were lost at sea, but despite this, two colonies were soon established on the southwestern coast: Eystribyggð (Eastern Settlement) and Vestribyggð (Western Settlement).

At the time, Inuit people lived in parts of northernmost Greenland, but the area settled by the Norse was completely uninhabited. They built simple houses and lived by fishing, hunting and herding. Archaeologists have found the ruins of around 620 farms and it is believed that at most between 5,000 and 10,000 Scandinavians lived in Greenland during this period.

With the help of Norwegian and Icelandic ships, they traded extensively with Europe, exporting mainly walrus tusks, wool and furs in exchange for mainly iron tools, building materials and some exclusive foods. In this way, many of the new Greenlanders acquired great wealth.

Greenland also soon had its own bishop when the island was Christianized. Although Greenland eventually became formally subordinate to the Norwegian king, his influence was limited. Instead, there was a relatively high degree of independence, with local chiefs playing a leading role in decision-making, but with the peasants also having a major influence on everyday and political life on the island.

The settlements are abandoned

As is often the case, happiness rarely lasts forever and this was to be the case for the people of Greenland. With their small numbers and isolated location, they were entirely dependent on expeditions for a decent existence. At the same time, contact with the outside world became increasingly limited, and in the mid-14th century the small western settlement was abandoned. By the end of the 15th century, all the inhabitants had also left the larger eastern settlement, and later expeditions found no living people in these areas either.

Exactly why and how the Norse settlements in Greenland were emptied is not known with certainty, but a number of factors may have played a role. During the 14th century, the area became colder, which, together with erosion due to the cutting down of trees, made it more difficult to cultivate and live on the island. In addition, they became increasingly economically isolated in terms of trade, partly because the demand for walrus tusks fell due to the availability of cheaper ivory from Africa.

There is also evidence that the Inuit expanded southwards and became involved in bloody conflicts with the Norse. There is also speculation that younger generations simply grew unhappy with the isolation and preferred to settle in more populated areas of Iceland or Norway – or that they may even have headed west for new adventures in the Americas.

In 1540, Icelandic seafarer Jon reported visiting Greenland and finding a “dead man lying face down on the ground. On his head he wore a well-made hood and otherwise good clothes of wool and sealskin. Near him lay a knife, bent and torn”. If the story is to be believed, this would have been the last time a European saw a Nordic Greenlander with his own eyes.

Renewed interest

The Norse settlements had been lost, but in time the island would once again attract the attention of the Nordic rulers. In 1605, King Christian IV of Denmark sent three ships to Greenland, followed by new expeditions to map and explore the giant island’s coast.

At this time, whale and seal hunting were the main attractions, as well as an increased demand for cod liver oil. During the 17th century, the area was also increasingly visited by Dutch and English whalers engaged in trade with the Inuit.

Politically, it was now perceived as urgent by the northerners to secure control of the island before anyone else did. On July 3, 1721, Norwegian priest Hans Egede and a few dozen settlers also arrived on the island to establish a colony with the support of Danish King Frederick IV – and to Christianize the island’s Inuit population.

A part of Denmark

The number of Nordic settlers in Greenland grew again over time – while conflicts with the Dutch and British escalated to the point of bloody sea battles. In 1733-1734, it was also reported that thousands of people died in a smallpox epidemic, but in the following years the Danish Crown was still able to strengthen its grip on the island and established further trading posts along the Greenlandic coast.

At the end of the 18th century, Denmark established a trading monopoly over the island to control the trade in walrus tusks, sealskins and other natural resources. The 19th century also saw the beginning of a more systematic mapping of the Greenland interior.

Among other things, the Danes focused on studying the ruins of the old Norse settlements in more detail, and also found that the stories told in the old sagas seemed in many respects to have described real events.

The island remained a Danish colony until 1953, when the area was formally recognized as a county in the Danish realm. This meant that all inhabitants of Greenland also became Danish citizens and Greenland thus gained two seats in the Danish Parliament.

In 1979, Greenland’s autonomy was increased and it became a more autonomous region of the Danish Kingdom with its own parliament and self-determination in most areas – an autonomy that was then further extended in 2009.

The son discovered America

While not an uninterrupted presence in Greenland, the Norse have an ancient history on the world’s largest island, stretching back over a thousand years.

Today, less than 10% of Greenland’s population is of Nordic origin. The majority of the population is descended from the Thule people – the same Inuit who arrived in Greenland in the 13th century from Alaska and who, according to researchers, likely came into conflict with the early Norse and contributed to the eventual abandonment of the settlements.

Erik the Red would make history with his settlement of Greenland. In the autumn of his life, according to legend, he also came very close to joining his son Leif Eriksson’s expedition to America, the new land that the Norse would come to call Vinland. However, on the way to the ship, Erik fell off his horse, which was interpreted as a bad omen and he was therefore left at home.

Later that winter, the accident was to become more definitive when Erik, along with a large number of other settlers, died of an unknown disease that ravaged the Nordic settlements. His son Leif would also go down in history and is now considered the first European to land in North America – 500 years before Christopher Columbus. You can read more about the first Norse expeditions to the North American continent here.