Snæbjörn galti Hólmsteinsson (

Modern Icelandic Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely re ...

: ;

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

: ; c. 910 – c. 978) was the first

Norseman The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the pre ...

to intentionally navigate to

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

, doing so in 978 CE. His voyage followed the accidental discovery of lands west of

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

Gunnbjörn Ulfsson Gunnbjörn Ulfsson (fl. c. 10th century), also Gunnbjörn Ulf-Krakuson, was a Norwegian settler of Iceland. He was reportedly the first European to sight Greenland. A number of modern place names in Greenland commemorate Gunnbjörn, most notably ...

, probably in the early 10th century. According to records from the time, Galte led the first attempt to colonize the eastern coast of Greenland. However his effort ended with disaster and he was killed in internal strife. There had been a saga about the voyage of Snæbjörn, but it has been lost over time.

Erik the Red Erik Thorvaldsson (), known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer, described in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first settlement in Greenland. He most likely earned the epithet "the Red" due to the color of his hair a ...

would become the first ''permanent'' European settler in 982. According to the

Saga of Erik the Red The ''Saga of Erik the Red'', in non, Eiríks saga rauða (), is an Icelandic saga on the Norse exploration of North America. The original saga is thought to have been written in the 13th century. It is preserved in somewhat different versions ...

, he spent his three years exploring the west coast of Greenland. Apparently he planned his journey much better and probably was luckier with the weather as well as maintaining better control of his crew.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snaebjorn Galti Norwegian explorers Norse settlements in Greenland 10th-century Icelandic people