Which Norse explorer from Iceland led the Viking expansion where Vikings sailed the North Atlantic and reached south to North Africa and Russia?
Leif Erikson Leif Erikson or Leif Ericson (Old Norse: "Leifr Eiríksson" ; Icelandic: "Leifur Eiríksson"; Norwegian: "Leiv Eiriksson" 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He was the first known European to have discovered continental North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus (or possibly Saint Brendan). According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada. Later archaeological evidence suggests that Vinland may have been the areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and that the L'Anse aux Meadows site was a ship repair station.
Freydís Eiríksdóttir Freydís Eiríksdóttir was said to be born around 970 to Erik the Red (as in her patronym) who was associated with the Norse exploration of North America and the finding of Vinland with his son Leif Erikson. The only medieval and primary sources we have of Freydís are the two Vinland sagas; the Grœnlendinga saga and the Eiríks saga rauða. The two sagas offer differing accounts, though in both Freydís appears as a masculine, strong-willed woman who would defy the odds of her society.