Leif Eriksson (died ca 1020)

The sagas or oral stories of the Norse tell of Bjarni Herjolfsson a Viking who was blown off course while travelling between Iceland and Greenland in A.D. 986. His reports of "Markland", a heavily wooded coastline, were an irresistible lure to the timber-needy Norse. Leif Eriksson (sone of the Erik the Red), also known as "Leif the Lucky", followed Herjolfsson's route and became the first Norse to land in "Vinland". The sagas describe the settlement of Vinland by at least three Norse expeditions as well as trade and conflict with people they called "Skraelings". At least one child was born in Vinland before the settlement was abandoned. He was Snorri, son of Gudrud, Leif's sister-in-law, and Thorvald Karlsefni. In 1960, the Norwegian archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad and her husband Helge Ingstad followed clues from the sagas that brought them across the Atlantic to L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. There they were led to a possible site by local fisherman George Decker. Several years of excavation, some in conjunction with the Canadian Parks Service, resulted in the discovery of artifacts that are indeed of Norse origin as well as the structural remains of a small Norse settlement.