Where else might the Vikings have landed in America?

When the Norwegian husband and wife team of Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad uncovered the remains of a Norse settlement in the 1960s at the L’Anse aux Meadows site in Newfoundland, Canada, it confirmed a long-held suspicion. The Vikings really had made it to North America.

In the decades since, archeologists, historians and amateur metal detectorists have scoured the continent for further signs of Norse activity from the Viking era. At the time of writing, however, L’Anse aux Meadows remains the only confirmed Viking Age site in the Americas. But where else might they have gone?

Greenland and Baffin Island

Before we examine places that the Vikings could theoretically have visited as they sailed across the Atlantic, we should mention one place they definitely did reach. Greenland, of course, is not part of North America in a political sense – much to Donald Trump’s chagrin. At the same time, it is usually considered part of the North American continent, and was first visited by the Norse in approximately 982 CE as a group led by Erik the Red began to settle there.

As we know from the Vinland Sagas, however, the Norse also sailed further west, led by Leif Erikson, Erik's son. The sagas mention three main points in the journey into the unknown – Helluland, Markland and Vinland.

Helluland, or the “Land of Flat Stones”, is a barren region of ice and stone that many historians believe refers to Baffin Island.  The island’s location, just west of Greenland, means it would be a logical landmark for any journeys made from the north to the south-west.

Yet while some researchers – most notably Patricia Sutherland – have found potential indications of a Norse presence, there has been no evidence yet that definitively shows that the Vikings ever visited the island.

Labrador and Newfoundland

“An island lay in the south-east off the land, and they found bears thereon, and called the island Bjarney (Bear Island); but the mainland, where the forest was, they called Markland (forest-land).”
Eirik the Red’s Saga, available online.

And so we come to Markland, the “Land of Forests”, which is usually considered to correspond to the coast of Labrador in Canada, just north of Newfoundland. Although there is no evidence of Norse settlements in the main Labrador region, both historical records and isolated archeological finds indicate that the Scandinavians did make it to this region.

Indeed, several written sources indicate that the Norse made regular trips from Greenland to the west to gather timber for building houses and boats. These journeys continued as late as 1347. As an area thick with forests, Labrador was their likely destination...

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