I was watching a what if video on Vikings when this question popped into my head. Why didn’t the Vikings sail south of Newfoundland? I know they established a colony there, but lost it due to native resistance. Did the Vikings ever try sailing south to explore more of the Eastern coast of the U.S.? If so, why didn’t they settle in a more hospitable climate?
There's an FAQ section devoted to the Norse colonization of America, which should help answer your question. In brief, there probably never was a true colonization effort in terms of establishing a permanent settlement. The Greenlanders were a small community, and some of them occasionally spent a few years harvesting timber and other things from a base camp at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, but they picked up everything and took it with them when they left. Although they might have had conflicts with Native Americans in other places, there's no indications First Peoples were even present in the region of the Norse camp that we found. (We can't trust the sagas for everything!) If a Greenlander did want to move somewhere more hospitable (and most Greenlanders were fine with their homes for about 500 years), they'd more likely go to Iceland, the British Isles, or Scandinavia, rather than striking out on their own. If anyone did strike out and try to settle North America, they did so in such small numbers that it's been completely forgot.
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!