Snapshot · Lex Fridman Podcast
Erik the Red called the icy island 'Greenland' to attract settlers, claiming salmon were so plentiful you could scoop them by hand — a deliberate lie Lars Brownworth calls the greatest real estate scam in history.
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At 1:23:10 · chapter starts 1:12:33
The story of Viking North America begins with a family of exiles. Erik the Red — kicked out of Norway for killings, then kicked out of Iceland for more killings — sailed west to Greenland and committed what Lars Brownworth calls the greatest real estate scam in history: naming a glacier-covered island 'Greenland' and inventing stories of salmon so abundant you could scoop them by hand, luring 500 settlers across 2,000 miles of open ocean. [2] — Lars Brownworth "Exiled from Norway, then exiled from Iceland, Erik the Red landed on a glacier-covered island and called it 'Greenland' — then fabricated s…" 1:20:00 His son Leif Erikson, facing a Greenland already running short of resources, pushed further west on the testimony of a Viking who had glimpsed land through the clouds. [1] — Lars Brownworth "Around the year 1000, Leif Erikson landed in Vinland — now identified as Newfoundland — 500 years before Columbus. He found inexhaustible t…" 1:13:33 He landed in Vinland — now L'Anse aux Meadows — and became the first European on American soil, 500 years before Columbus, standing on a continent of inexhaustible timber and food without knowing it. The Vikings stayed 3 years and left: outnumbered millions-to-one by Algonquin peoples who never stopped attacking, still stubbornly attempting animal husbandry in a climate that wouldn't support it, and 2,000 miles from their nearest supply base. Brownworth and Fridman explore an evocative counterfactual: had the Vikings succeeded and spread southward, the history of the American continent — including the catastrophic impact of European diseases on indigenous populations — might have been entirely different.
Leif Erikson landed in North America around the year 1000, approximately 500 years before Columbus, settling briefly at a site now identified as L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.
Around the year 1000, Leif Erikson landed in Vinland — now identified as Newfoundland — 500 years before Columbus. He found inexhaustible timber and food, but also relentless native resistance from the Algonquin. After 3 years, the Vikings left, told almost no one, and the discovery vanished into northern sagas.
Exiled from Norway, then exiled from Iceland, Erik the Red landed on a glacier-covered island and called it 'Greenland' — then fabricated stories of salmon so plentiful you could scoop them by hand. It worked: he lured hundreds of settlers across 2,000 miles of open ocean to a place where all their cattle died the first winter.
Knut the Great, known as the Emperor of the North, controlled England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark — one of the most powerful rulers of the Viking Age.
Erik the Red established two settlements in Greenland — the Western Settlement and the Eastern Settlement — taking 25 ships from Iceland, of which 14 made it.
The Viking colonies in Greenland survived until the 1400s, eventually failing because colonists stubbornly refused to abandon animal husbandry and adapt to the Arctic environment.
While Norwegian Vikings went west and Danes went south, Swedish Vikings went east — using the Volga and Dnieper river systems to reach the Black Sea, the Caspian, and ultimately Constantinople. Along the way they founded Novgorod and Kiev, establishing the Kievan Rus, the ancestor of modern Russia.
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