Leif Ericsson (v. 975-v. 1020) (old Icelandic: Leifr Eiríksson ) was a Icelandic explorer who was the first European to explore grounds of the North America, and more particularly the area which will become Newfoundland, with the Canada.

He was the son of Érik the Red (Eiríkr rauði) and grandson of Thorvald Ásvaldsson, put both out the law in Norway for murder and refugees in Western Iceland. It is there that was born Leif. Again banished, Erik took along its family to the Greenland.

The first voyage of Leif took it along in Norway to the court of the king Olaf Tryggvason who could convince it to convert with Christianity and to take along a priest to Greenland, which displeased deeply with his/her father.

A little later while being based on the account of the Icelander Bjarni Herjólfsson who had already seen the New World towards 986, Leif visited it into 990 and named three regions, the Helluland, the Markland and the Vinland. The Helluland was a rock and afflicted ground, probably the island of Baffin and the north of Labrador. The Markland was a low and timbered coast, almost certainly what is today the south of the Labrador. The Vinland was a ground of good pastures and wood, that Leif named according to the Scandinavian word to say " pâturage". It is perhaps about the site of the Handle in Meadows in Newfoundland. An generally accepted idea says that the name comes from the vines that it found there (Vinland = country of the wine). He and its crew there spent the winter and returned to Greenland with a wood and grape loading.

He encouraged then other forwardings of his close relations towards the west but, his/her father being deceased, he took again his functions of chief and hardly set out again. It had however still to deal with the case of his half-sister who committed crimes of blood with her crew at the time of a last voyage in Vinland.

Simple: Leif Ericsson