Gunnbjörn Ulfsson (fl. c. 10th century), also Gunnbjörn Ulf-Krakuson, was a Norwegian settler of

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

. He was reportedly the first European to sight

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

. A number of modern place names in Greenland commemorate Gunnbjörn, most notably Gunnbjørn Fjeld.

Sources

The only reference to Gunnbjörn is from the ''Book of Settlement of Iceland'' ('' Landnámabók''). It is stated that his sons lived in Iceland's West fjords and a note is made that Gunnbjörnssker are named after him. Gunnbjörn was blown off course while sailing from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. He and his crew sighted islands ( Gunnbjörn's skerries) west of Iceland, and reported this find but did not land. An exact date for this event is not recorded in the sagas. Various sources offer dates ranging from 876 to 932. The first records of purposeful visits to Gunnbjörn's skerries were made by Snæbjörn Galti around 978 and soon after by

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 European settlement in Greenland. Erik most likely earned the epithet "the Red" due to the color o ...

who also explored the main island of Greenland, and soon established a settlement. Waldemar Lehn (1911–2005), professor emeritus at the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1877, it is the first university of Western Canada. Both by total student enrolment and campus area, the University of ...

and an expert in atmospheric refraction and mirages, argued that the skerries Gunnbjörn saw could be explained as the sighting of Greenland's coast via the refraction of a superior mirage. Such phenomena were not unknown to the Norse, who called them ''hillingar''. If so, this would have been the first European sighting of North America.

References

Norwegian explorers Norse settlements in Greenland Scandinavian explorers of North America Germanic pagans 10th-century explorers {{Explorer-stub