LEIF ERICKSSON DISCOVERER OF AMERICA?- BY AWAKE! WRITER IN DENMARK

WHO discovered America? Nobody really knows for sure.  The answer depends greatly on how you define "discover"  and "America."  (Note: I tell this: God discovered America/the World/ the Universe, because he made it)!  After all this, this vast land was populated for many centuries before the Europeans even knew it existed. Early in 1493, Christopher Columbus returned to Europe with eyewitness accounts of his first voyage to the Americas.  He actually landed on the islands of the West Indies. But he was not the first European to reach this amazing new world. A  band of fair-haired Scandinavians had evidently reached the North America mainland 500 years earlier.  

A thousand years ago, the North Atlantic was likely as cold and unpredictable as it is today.  A sailor may think that he knows the ocean's changing winds and currents, but and storm can make it impossible for him to find his bearings for weeks on end. According  to one of the ancient Norse sagas, this is just what happened one summer to young Bjarni Herjolfsson, and accomplished sailor and adventurer.  He lost his bearings-but he might have found a continent!

It was the era of the vikings, when the Norse expanded their dominion across the seas and down through Europe.  Their slim seaworthy ships could be seen anywhere from the coast of Norway to the shores of North Africa to the rivers of Europe.

According to the Saga of the Greenlanders, Bjarni went on a long excursion to Norway. As the winter of 986 C.E. neared,, he returned to Iceland with a full cargo. But to his surprise, he found that his father had left Iceland with a fleet of ships  under the leadership of Eric the Red.  They had gone away to settle in a large country that Erick had discovered west of Iceland.  To add to its appeal, Erik had named the island Greenland.  Resolutely, young Bjarni set sail for Greenland.   But then the wind changed. Fog descended upon the sailors.  "For many days they did not know where they were sailing," states the saga mentioned above.  

When the seaman finally saw land, it did not fit the description of Greenland.  The coast appeared to be lush, hilly, and forested.  They sailed North  with the coast on their left side. A second sighting of land seemed no more like Greenland than the first.  Several later, though, the land was different-more mountainous and glacial.  Then Bjarni and his crew turned east toward open seas and finally found Greenland and the Norse colony of Erik the Red. 

Next time: LEIF ERICKSSON THE DISCOVERER OF AMERICA? - BY AWAKE! WRITER IN DENMARK/Leif Eriksson Sets Out

From the Awake! magazine