The Viking explorer who founded the first known Norse settlement in Greenland at Brattahlíð was Erik the Red.
Erik the Red was an Icelandic-Norse chieftain who was exiled from Iceland after a period of conflict. He explored Greenland during the late tenth century and later returned to Iceland to encourage settlers to join a new colony. According to the sagas, he gave the land the attractive name Greenland.
Erik established his farm at Brattahlíð in the Eastern Settlement, near the modern settlement of Qassiarsuk. Norse communities later developed farms, churches, and livestock-based economies in Greenland’s fjord regions. Their society remained connected to Iceland, Norway, and the wider North Atlantic.
Erik’s son Leif Erikson later became associated with voyages westward to Vinland. This distinction matters: Erik the Red founded the Greenland colony, while Leif is the explorer traditionally linked with the first European voyage to North America in the sagas.