Why did Leif Ericson decide to go to the new land?
The son of the Viking Eric the Red, who colonized Greenland, Leif Ericson is credited with traveling even further from Europe around A.D. 1,000, exploring a part of North America the Vikings called Vinland.Eric the RedEricson’s father Eric the Red was a native of Iceland. After the government exiled him for three years in 982, according to Minnesota State University, Eric sailed west to explore an island earlier Vikings had described. He returned to Iceland and encouraged the people to join him colonizing the place he named Greenland.Bjarni HerjolfssonThe university states that Viking stories credit Bjarni Herjolfsson as the first Viking to see North America, after a storm blew him away from Greenland.Leif EricsonThe Encyclopedia of World Biography states that Ericson was frustrated living in Greenland under the thumb of his powerful father. Traveling to Norway, he heard Bjarni’s stories of the new land to the west and decided to explore what would be known as “Vinland.”Why Go?If Erics
