EXPLORATIONS OF EARLY GREENLANDERS 109
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 stand- ards, 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 Thor- finn 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 21 have been published. The inscription is thought to date from about 1300, but, of course, may relate to a much earlier event. It has been M Hovgaard, p. 39-
