Published : 13 Oct 2026, 11:55 PM
Updated : 13 Oct 2026, 11:55 PM
Viking explorers reached North America around 1,000 years ago, nearly five centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Bahamas in 1492, according to the BBC.
The Norse travelled across the North Atlantic using Iceland and Greenland as stopping points before reaching parts of what is now Canada. Their journeys were later recorded in Icelandic sagas, which researchers have found contain reliable historical details.
The BBC said a Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland was discovered in 1960.
A dating technique used by researchers in 2021 established that Vikings had occupied the site in 1021, suggesting it served as a base for further exploration.
According to the sagas, Norse explorers travelled south from Baffin Island and Labrador to a place they called Vinland.
Archaeological findings also indicate that their visits did not end with the earliest expeditions led by Leif Eriksson, the son of Greenland settler Erik the Red.
Robert McGhee, an archaeologist at the Canadian Museum of Civilisation, told the BBC’s Timewatch programme that evidence points to occasional Norse journeys to North America for another two or three centuries.
The BBC also cited historian Kirsten Seaver, who said European sailors were attempting to reach North America before Columbus’s voyage.
A letter written by Englishman John Day in 1497-98 suggested that Columbus knew men from Bristol had made voyages to the continent’s northern regions.
Columbus sailed directly across the Atlantic in search of a route to the riches of Asia, while earlier Norse voyages had followed a northern route via Greenland.
The Greenland settlement established by Erik the Red lasted for around 500 years before disappearing in the early 15th Century, according to the report, closing a major chapter in Norse exploration of the North Atlantic.