McGovern has spent more than 40 years piecing together the history of the Norse settlements in Greenland. With his heavy white beard and thick build, he could pass for a Viking chieftain ...

According to Icelandic sagas, 25 Viking ships set sail from Iceland in 985 to establish settlements in Greenland. Their descendants lived there for centuries before suddenly disappearing in the ...

Greenland is having a moment in the international spotlight as U.S. President Donald Trump maneuvers to gain control of the mineral-rich Arctic territory that most people know only as a huge icy ...

It’s worth pondering how the history of the West might have differed if the weather had remained balmy. Norse populations in Iceland and Greenland might have flourished, and the Vikings might ...

The Vikings were marauders, feared and loathed in Europe before they sailed west -- first to Iceland, then Greenland. From there they went further still, reaching a small sheltered bay at the end ...

5 min read This story appears in the November/December 2016 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Icelandic sagas tell how the 10th-century Viking sailor Leif Eriksson stumbled on a new ...

Much less is known about Viking navigation ... of Norse history and legends written in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries—includes sailing directions from Norway to Greenland that rely ...