The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 (5 page)

The Norse were not the first visitors to Iceland. Irish monks, seeking
peaceful refuges far from the political and social turmoil at home, had
preceded them. The oceangoing prelates settled the Faeroe Islands by
A.D. 700 and sailed as far north as Iceland by 790. Legend has it they followed the spring migration of wild geese to land. But these remarkable
seamen were unable to (or in any case did not) maintain a permanent settlement. Norse ships arrived three-quarters of a century later, at a time
when January pack ice rarely reached the island's northern coast and both
winter and summer temperatures were usually higher than today.

The ocean currents and atmospheric conditions near Iceland have an
important bearing on temperature and rainfall throughout northwestern
Europe. Warm water from the Atlantic and cold water from the Arctic
converge on Iceland's shores. A branch of the cold East Greenland current
sweeps along the north and east coasts of the island. The warmer
Irminger current flows along the south shore and is an arm of the North
Atlantic current, which, in turn, originates in the Gulf Stream deep in the
North Atlantic Ocean. Today, in average years, the January to April pack
ice edge lies about 90 to 100 kilometers off the northwestern corner of
Iceland. In a mild year, the edge is 200 to 240 kilometers away, whereas
an exceptionally cold season can bring pack right to the north coast and
even around the eastern side of the island to the southern shore. An Irish
monk named Dicuil, writing in A.D. 825, recorded that his brethren living in Iceland found no ice along the south coast but encountered it
about a day's sail away from the north shore, the position the pack has occupied for most of the twentieth century. In contrast, during a period of
great cold between 1350 and 1380, sea ice came so close to land that
Greenland polar bears came ashore.

The new colony would never have survived had not the winters been
milder than in earlier centuries. Even in good years, the Icelanders scrabbled for a living from thin soils and bitterly cold seas. In bad years they
courted disaster. Oddur Einersson observed in 1580 that "the Icelanders
who have settled on the northern coasts are never safe from this most terrible visitor.... Sometimes it is absent from the shores of Iceland for many years at a time.... Sometimes it is scarcely to be seen for a whole decade
or longer. . . . Sometimes it occurs almost every year." In a bad ice year,
such as those of the 1180s or 1287, people starved, especially when several
harsh winters followed one upon the next. In the extreme winter of 1695,
ice blocked the entire coast in January and stayed until summer. A contemporary account tells us: "The same frosts and severe conditions came
to most parts of the country; in most places sheep and horses perished in
large numbers, and most people had to slaughter half their stock of cattle
and sheep, both in order to save hay and for food since fishing could not
be conducted because of the extensive ice cover."2 Icelandic agriculture is
vulnerable to harsh winters to this day. For example, intense icing and low
temperatures during the severe winter of 1967 reduced farmers' productivity by about a fifth-this in an era of improved farming methods and livestock, indoor heating, and a sophisticated transport infrastructure.

The Norse brought with them a medieval dairying economy like that
at home, which they combined with seal hunting and cod fishing.
Warmer summer temperatures allowed them to obtain reasonably ample
hay harvests for winter fodder and also to plant barley, even near the
north coast, where it was cultivated until the twelfth century. After that,
farmers could never grow barley in Iceland until the early 1900s.

Sometime in the late tenth century, Eirik the Red and his father Thorvald
Asvaldsson left their home in southwestern Norway "because of some
killings." They sailed westward to Iceland but had to make do with farfrom-fertile land. Eirik was quarrelsome and endowed with a temper that
matched his red hair. He married a well-connected Icelandic woman,
there were more killings, and he was forced out to a farm on a windswept
island. Even there he quarreled with a man named Thorgest to whom he
had lent his ornamented high seat posts. The resulting bloodshed caused
Eirik to be banished for three years. He took his ship and sailed boldly
westward to explore some mysterious islands sighted by a drifting ship
captained by a relative about a half-century earlier.

Armed with an invaluable body of sailing lore collected over generations by his kin, Eirik set off into unknown waters with a calm confidence that he would find new lands. Like other Norse skippers, he was an
expert latitude sailor who used the sun and North Star to stay on course.
He also carried a s6larsteinn, or "sun stone," a bearing dial or sun compass
in stone or wood that allowed a ship's captain with a knowledge of the
sun's positions to steer by a thin radial shadow cast on the disk when held
level in his hand. Eirik sailed westward, steering for some snowy peaks
that loomed over the horizon when the expedition was still not far from
Iceland. The sailors approached land, then coasted southward and westward until they reached a deeply indented coastline dissected by deep
fjords behind sheltering offshore islands. They had reached southwestern
Greenland.

They had the land to themselves, a place where green summer pastures
and thick willow scrub offered pasture and fuel. The summers were brief
and fairly warm, with longer days than Iceland. The winters were long and
harsh, but the Norse were accustomed to climatic extremes. They found
much better grazing land than that at home, abundant fish and sea mammals, and edible birds aplenty. Eirik sailed back to Iceland with glowing
reports of a land so fertile he named it Greenland, "for he said that people
would be much more tempted to go there if it had an attractive name."3

He must have been a persuasive leader, for twenty-five ships of potential colonists sailed back to Greenland with him. Fourteen reached what
was soon called the Eastern Settlement, in the sheltered waters of the
southwest in what are now the Julianehab and Narsaq districts. Eirik built
his chieftain's seat at Brattahlid ("Steep Slope") in the heart of the richest
farmland. At about the same time, another group of colonists pushed further north and founded the Western Settlement, centered around
Sandnes Farm (Kilaarsarfik), in the modern-day Godthab district at the
head of the sheltered Ameralik fjord. Life in Greenland was easier than on
the crowded, hardscrabble fields of Iceland, with, as yet, no competition
from indigenous Inuit people, plenty to eat, and harsh but usually endurable conditions at sea.

The Norse soon explored the fjords and islands of the west coast. The
shoreline was relatively ice-free most summers, thanks to the north flowing West Greenland current, which hugs the west coast and flows
into Baffin Bay. The favorable current carried the colonists' ships into
the heart of a land of islands and fjords around Disko Bay they called
Nororseta, which teemed with cod, seals and walrus. Nororseta became
an important hunting ground, where the colonists obtained food for the
following winter and precious trade goods, especially narwhal and walrus tusks, which were much prized. For many years, the Greenland
churches' tithes to the diocesan authorities in Norway were partly paid
in walrus ivory.

Greenlanders sailing to Nororseta must have quickly become aware of
lands to the west, if only because the prevailing currents in the northern
hunting grounds carried them that way. The Davis Strait is little more
than 325 kilometers across at its narrowest point. Even a modest journey
offshore in good visibility would bring the high mountains of Baffinland
into sight. The Norse found North America through a combination of
accident and inevitability, having sighted the Arctic islands and mainland
long before they set foot on western shores. They arrived in Nororseta at a
time when summer ice conditions were usually less severe than in later
centuries, which made it easier for them to take advantage of currents
along the American side of the Strait.

The West Greenland current flows into Baffin Bay and the heart of
Nororseta, where it gives way to much colder south-flowing currents.
Much cooler water passes southward along Baffin Island, Labrador, and
eastern Newfoundland. This circulation pattern affects ice formation.
The Baffin/Labrador coast has heavier ice cover and a longer sea ice season, whereas Greenland coast sea ice forms late and disperses early. There
is often a coastal belt of ice-free water all the way up to the Arctic Circle
on the eastern side of the Davis Strait. The climate of the Medieval Warm
Period may have permitted easier navigation between Baffinland and
Labrador during many summers.

Yet the first documented sighting did not come from such a northern
coasting voyage. Bjarni Herjolfsson, a young merchant shipowner and "man of much promise" who dreamed of exploring foreign lands, arrived
in Iceland from Norway in about 985 and was shocked to find that his father had emigrated to Greenland with Eirik the Red a short time before.
Refusing to unload his ship, he set off for Greenland at once, taking advantage of a fair wind. The wind dropped. For days Bjarni and his men
sailed in northerly winds and fog with no idea of their position. Eventually they sighted a flat, well-forested coastline quite unlike their destination, "for there are said to be huge glaciers in Greenland." Bjarni stayed
offshore and coasted southward, sighting more land at intervals. Eventually a southwesterly gale carried them offshore for four days. They made
land at dusk at a promontory that had a boat hauled up on it, and so finally reached their original destination.

The cautious Herjolfsson was criticized heartily for not setting foot on
the mysterious coastline. Lief Eirikson, the son of Eirik the Red, bought
Bjarni's ship, recruited a crew of thirty-five men, and sailed westward to
Baffinland. Eirik himself reluctantly stayed behind after injuring himself on
his way to the boat. Lief anchored off a rocky, glacier-bound coast, then
cruised southward to a flat, well-wooded shore with sandy beaches, which
he named Markland ("Forest Land") "for its advantages." He had reached
part of modern-day Labrador, south of the northern limit of forests, somewhere near Hamilton Inlet. A favorable northeast wind carried them even
further south, to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River and to a region
they called Vinland ("Wine Land"), perhaps after its wild grapes.

The famous L'Anse aux Meadows archaeological site, in extreme
northern Newfoundland, may be where Lief Eirikson and his crew wintered over and founded a transhipment station, where timber and furs
were processed before being carried on to Greenland. Archaeologists
Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine unearthed eight sod-walled structures on a
terrace overlooking a shallow bay. The settlement had a work shed, a
smithy, also storage structures and four turf boat sheds. The Norse knew
how to choose a winter settlement. LAnse aux Meadows lies at a strategic
point on the Strait of Belle Isle, at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River,
surrounded by water on three sides, with ample summer grazing for cattle. From :Anse and perhaps other camps, the Norse ranged widely, but
how far south they sailed along the mainland coast remains a matter of
controversy.

All the information about Markland and Vinland was held by Greenland settler families with close-knit kin ties. They kept their information and sailing directions to themselves, just as fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Atlantic explorers did. Later expeditions encountered
numerous indigenous people, who fought them so fiercely that the
Norse never settled permanently in the western lands. But they visited
regularly in search of timber, which was scarce in the Greenland settlements and easier to obtain from the west than from distant Norway.
For two or more centuries, Greenland ships took passage to North
America by sailing north and west and letting southerly ocean currents
carry them to their destination. Then they sailed directly home on the
prevailing southwesterly winds.