The Vikings: Longships and Exploration

Hi! I'm Adam. Today we are going on a Viking adventure! Let's find out how the Vikings sailed across the sea and explored new lands. The Vikings came from Scandinavia. That means Norway, Sweden and Denmark. They lived over twelve hundred years ago, and they were brilliant sailors. This is a longship. It was long, narrow and light. The planks overlapped, so the ship was strong, but it could bend with the waves. It had oars, and one big square sail. A longship was shallow, so only a small part sat under the water. That meant Vikings could sail up rivers and land right on beaches. But how did the Vikings find their way? They had no maps and no compass! They followed the sun, the stars and the shape of the coast. It took great skill to sail so far. Then the Vikings sailed west, across the cold North Atlantic Ocean. They settled in Iceland, and then in Greenland. Leif Erikson sailed even further, all the way to North America, about one thousand years ago. That was almost five hundred years before Columbus! So remember: the Vikings were sailors and explorers. Their longships took them across seas and up rivers. Which land did Leif Erikson reach?

• The Vikings came from Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
• Overlapping planks made the ship strong, but it could still bend with the waves.
• A longship was shallow: only about 1 metre of it sat under the water.
• They had no compass. They followed the sun, the stars and the shape of the coast.
• Leif Erikson reached North America about the year 1000, almost 500 years before Columbus.