Gunnbjörn's skerries (''Gunnbjarnarsker'') were a group of small rocky islands along or near the eastern coast of Greenland. They form the earliest mention of Greenland in the

Sagas of Icelanders The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic Saga, sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and earl ...

. In the early 10th century, Gunnbjörn Ulfsson reports finding a group of rocky islands in the Atlantic when his ship is blown off course from Iceland. Named after him, Gunnbjörn's skerries were likely near modern-day

Kulusuk Kulusuk (old spelling: ''Qulusuk''),Eastgreenland.com.Kulusuk". formerly Kap Dan, is a settlement in the Sermersooq municipality in southeastern Greenland, located on an island of the same name. The settlement has a population of 241, including m ...

just off the eastern coast of Greenland, but their exact location is unknown. According to the ''

Landnámabók (, "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to , is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement () of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. is divided into five parts and ov ...

'', Snæbjörn Galti led the earliest recorded intentional Norse voyage to Greenland and started a failed settlement on the eastern coast of Greenland at the skerries. The colony struggled, Snæbjörn Galti was murdered, the settlement was abandoned, and only 2 colonists survived the return to Iceland.Author biography

Ívar Bárðarson Ívar Bárðarson (also known as Ivar Bardarson) was a fourteenth-century Norwegian clergyman. After the death of the Gardar bishop, he became the Catholic Church's official representative in Greenland. He is known primarily for his reports on ...

, a Catholic priest sent to Greenland in 1341, wrote that the skerries were about "two days and two nights sailing due West" from Iceland and the halfway point on trips to the later more successful colonies on the western coast. After the end of the

Medieval Warm Period The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from about to about . Climate proxy records show peak warmth occu ...

, the area began to freeze over and became hazardous to ships. Some later medieval cartographers claim the entire area was "destroyed" by volcanic activity.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunnbjorn's skerries Islands of the North Atlantic Ocean Skerries Greenland