The overall picture of the voyages which emerges from the texts is reasonably clear:
around the year 1000 people from Greenland and Iceland made several voyages along
the eastern coast of North America, into the Gulf of St Lawrence, to Prince Edward
Island and New Brunswick, and farther south. They built camps in more than one
location in this area and spent from one winter to a few years in them. They came into
contact with natives, partly on friendly trading terms, but also fought battles with
them. Internal conflicts as well as attacks from the natives eventually led them to leave.
After that it is unlikely that the Greenlanders ever ventured again as far south as the
places mentioned in the sagas, but it is highly probable that they went to Labrador on a
regular basis to gather wood, all through the Middle Ages – since in an Icelandic annal
for 1347 we have a casual reference to such a trip, which seems to be regarded as
commonplace.
On the Vinland voyages people are bound to have sought out the fruits and plants
which Greenland lacks and they may even have tried to settle in some places, only to
find the land already crowded with native people. So they ended up going back home
and spent the rest of their lives boasting of the great time they had when they sailed all
summer long across the seven seas, finding new and previously unheard-of lands... just
as the Icelandic sagas tell us.
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–– chapter 41 : The North Atlantic expansion––