Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de Verendrye (b. 1683 at Trois Rivieres, Québec), took an expedition from his forts in present-day Manitoba to what is now North Dakota, in search of a rumoured tribe of "white, blue-eyed Indians". Along the banks of the Missouri River La Verendrye found a stone cairn with a small stone tablet inscribed on both sides with unfamiliar characters. Jesuit scholars in Québec later described the writing on the stone as "Tartarian" -- a runic script similar to Norse runes. La Verendrye located the Mandan village in what is now MacLean Co., North Dakota, between Minot and Bismarck, on Dec. 3, 1738. It was a large and well-fortified town with 130 houses laid out in streets. The fort's palisades and ramparts were not unlike European battlements, with a dry moat around the perimeter. More remarkable, many of the Mandans had light skin, fair hair, and "European" features. La Verendrye described their houses as "large and spacious," very clean, with separate rooms.
La Verendrye's discovery of a runic inscription near the Mandan village can possibly be linked to a second theory about how the tribe acquired its Nordic genetic strain. Eric Thorvaldsson, better known as "The Red," founded two separate colonies of expatriate Icelanders on Greenland's southwest coast in 986. The larger and more southerly, "Eastern," settlement eventually numbered some 3,000 souls (c. 1,100), while the "Western" settlement, 300 miles to the northwest in the region of present day Godthaab (Nuuk; Good Hope), never grew to more then 300-350 population. Lief Ericsson's introduction of Christianity to Greenland in 999 resulted in 16 churches eventually being built throughout the two settlements. The cathedral at Gardar was said to have been a fine edifice; its surviving foundation shows that it was 84' long and 60' wide. The bishop's residence, built after a resident bishop was appointed in 1112 ("Bishop of Greenland and Vinland in partibus infidelum"), was even larger than the cathedral.
By 1340, nearly all of the Western Settlement's 190 farms had been expropriated by the Church in lieu of payments for indulgences, special masses for the departed, etc. The once free and independent Greenlanders were reduced to the status of serfs and tenant farmers on their own former holdings.
In 1342 the Western Settlement apparently decided en masse to clear out for parts unknown An ancient account says: "The inhabitants of Greenland fell voluntarily away from the true faith and the Christian religion, and after having given up all the good manners and true virtues, turned to the people of America ('ad Americae populos se converteunt' ) Some say that Greenland lies away near the western lands of the world." At the time, Magnus Eriksson, a devout and zealous Christian, was king of Norway and Sweden. In 1347, King Magnus donated a large sum of money the Greenland Cathedral, and was less than enchanted when, a yeare later, a ship with 17 Greenlanders arrived in Bergen bearing news of the Western Settlement's disappearance.
When the good ship 'Islendingur' sets sail off the coast of Iceland towards Greenland, it will be the starting signal for several months of celebrations in the North Atlantic countries. Islendingur will be ploughing through the Atlantic in a re-enactment of Leif Eriksson's achievement. The ship will also play the role of herald, bringing the news of the jubilee from country to country. The 2,600 miles odyssey voyage of the Viking ship Islendingur is an important part of the celebrations. On board the Viking ship Islendingur Icelander Gunnar Marel Eggertsson and his crew will sail in the wake of Leif Eriksson from Iceland to Greenland, and from there on to Newfoundland and New York.
The starting signal for the official celebrations will be the arrival of the Viking ship Islendingur in Brattahlid/Qassiarsuk, Southern Greenland on 15th July. For the last stage of its journey, the ship will be accompanied by kayaks, and it will be greeted in Qassiarsuk by choirs from Greenland. The Viking ship is an exact replica of the ship Leif Eriksson sailed to Vinland (Newfoundland) 1,000 years ago.
Thodhildur's church- it was Leif Eriksson who christianised the Norsemen of Greenland, but it was Thodhildur, Erik the Red's wife, who coerced her heathen husband into building the first church in Greenland.
In 1354 Magnus commissioned Paul Knutson, a judge and member of the Royal Council, to mount an expedition to search for the fugitive Greenlanders and restore them to the true Christian faith. Knutson chose an elite cohort of men, Norse and Swedes, and set sail to the west in a knarr (royal trading vessel). Some speculate that Bishop Gislrikt of Bergen, an Englishman, may have recommended Nicholas of Lynn, an English Franciscan friar famous as an astronomer, to Knutson as a navigator. Surviving members of the Knutson expedition returned to England and Norway in 1363 or 1364 with Ivar Bardson, a priest from Greenland. Nicholas of Lynn presented himself to the kings of England and Norway with a written account of a voyage to the northern seas entitled Inventio Fortunata.