For some reason, President Obama seems to have decided that the explorer Leif Erikson, who was the first European to discover the American mainland a millennium ago, was from Norway rather than his native Iceland based on the annual Leif Erikson Day proclamation on Oct. 9. To be fair, Obama has held onto the wording “son of Iceland and grandson of Norway” from his predecessors, but unlike them, he has used the opportunity to emphasize the relations between the United States and Norway instead of referring to the Nordic countries in general as has been done for decades.
If we look at the historical facts we have, mainly the Icelandic Sagas, Leif Erikson was born and grew up in Iceland. His father, Erik the Red, was a Norwegian who had emigrated to Iceland as a young man with his father. There he met Erikson’s mother, who was Icelandic. Later, Erik the Red established a Nordic settlement in Greenland. Erikson only visited Norway as a grown man. There he met with the Norwegian king. While sailing from Norway to Greenland to Christianize the settlement, Erikson and his crew drifted off course, ending up in today’s Newfoundland in Canada.
Despite all this, Obama said in his 2015 Leif Erikson Day proclamation that on that day “we honor him as an important piece of our shared past with the Norwegian people, and we celebrate the perilous yet rewarding voyage he and his crew undertook one millennium ago. Leif Erikson’s discovery marks the beginning of a meaningful friendship between Norway and the United States …” In his 2014 proclamation, Obama also suggested Erikson was Norwegian by saying he “left his Nordic homeland,” referring to Norway, and then sailed on to America.
Given the fact that Erikson was quite obviously born in Iceland and raised there, it is difficult to see how Obama has managed to reach the conclusion that he was Norwegian. Additionally Erikson had an Icelandic mother and never lived in Norway. The only link between Erikson and Norway is the fact his father was born there and lived there until he emigrated to Iceland as a young man. During Erikson’s lifetime, Iceland was an independent commonwealth lasting until 1262 and thus not a part of the Kingdom of Norway or in any way a subject to the Norwegian monarch.
Some might suggest that this is a minor issue. But it really is not. At least not in the eyes of Icelanders. After all, Leif Erikson is a very prominent historical figure. What is most important, though, is that what is right should be right, as we say in Iceland. To put this into an American context, suggesting Erikson was Norwegian amounts to claiming that the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was Canadian since his father was born in Nova Scotia and emigrated to the U.S. Or that the American industrialist Henry Ford was Irish since his father was born in Ireland.
President Obama is of course perfectly free to construct his proclamations in any way he chooses. That goes without saying. But one would assume that the White House was at least concerned with making sure official proclamations from the president are historically accurate. My suggestion to Obama is that the Leif Erikson Day proclamations should again be dedicated to the contribution of Nordic immigrants to American society, people from Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway, in addition to the traditional phrase “son of Iceland and grandson of Norway.”
Hjortur J. Gudmundsson is an Icelandic historian and MA in International Relations. Twitter: @Hjortur_J Website: www.civis.is.Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
