material. Plant material from Europe is Poa pratensis var pratensis and the low quantity of plant material native to North America is Poa pratensis var augustifolia. The common name in Europe is smooth meadowgrass or smoothstalk meadowgrass. The common name in North America is Kentucky bluegrass which started to be used sometime between 1833 and 1859 as a promotion of thoroughbreds, bourbon, and bluegrass for the state of Kentucky.
Kentucky bluegrass has long been assumed by most early botanists to have been introduced into North America from Europe by early New England colonists around or before 1700. However, Kentucky bluegrass was well established in the regions of the Appalachian Mountains and Great Lakes when the westward movement of settlers arrived in those areas. An introduced plant could not have spread from the New England region west to the Mississippi River that fast. Albeit, Kentucky bluegrass would have had time to spread through the Appalachian Mountains and Great Lakes regions if the Greenland Vikings had brought the bluegrass seeds in livestock forage on their three attempted expeditions to establish a permanent settlement in North America on Newfoundland during 1000-1012 AD.
The Viking period of expansion into the North Atlantic Islands occurred during 800 to 1050. This movement was greatly amplified in 872, when Harald Finehair became the first sole Norse King. The survivors of the battle and all who opposed him lost their land and had to make a hasty mass exodus. They emigrated to Scotland, Ireland, and the small north British islands. They reached Iceland in 874, and Erik the Red led a large group of colonists to Greenland in 986 and established two settlements. The vegetation of Northern Norway, Northern Britain, subarctic Iceland, and low arctic Greenland was very similar with birch, willow, grasses, and sedges. Poa pratensis was and still is a common plant in all of these plant communities. The Nordic and Celtic colonists were familiar with this type of landscape and had long-developed management skills specific to these conditions.
According to the two Greenlander Viking Sagas, by the year 1000, the Greenland population had increased to over 5,000 people. These Greenland Vikings attempted three expeditions to establish a permanent settlement in North America on Newfoundland. The first expedition, 1000-1002, was led by Leif Erikson, 1st son of Erik the Red. The second expedition, 1005, was led by Thorvald Eriksson, 2nd son of Erik the Red, who was killed by native people at Leifsbudir Vinland, the second campsite of the first expedition.
Thorfinn Karlsefni led the third expedition to North America in 1009. The settlers consisted of 160 or 250 men and women. They had 3 knarr (merchant) ships that could carry their cargo of household items, farm tools, seed, livestock of cattle and sheep, and forage. They landed at Straumfjord Vinland on the north shore of Newfoundland along the Strait of Belle Isle in the St. Lawrence Seaway where they spent the first winter. They established trade with the local people, furs for milk or red wool cloth. The Vikings fermented squashberries, gooseberries, and cranberries to make wine and smelted bog iron to make tools and weapons.
Thorfinn’s wife, Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, was beautiful and charismatic, gave birth to a son, Snorri, who was the first documented European person to be born in North America. Gudrid was the widow of Thorvald Eriksson. Sometime during the first year while still at Straumfjord, Thorfinn’s bull stormed out of the woods and startled a group of local people coming to trade. The bull incident intensified the hostile conditions causing the local people to return with a raiding party. This attack was stopped by a desperate pregnant woman, Freydis Eriksdottir, a daughter of Erik the Red. She picked up a sword from one of the men that had been killed during the first contact, pulled one or both of her breasts out of her bodice, pounded the sword against her chest, while shouting norse vulgarities at both the local people who were running away and at the fierce Viking warriors who were hiding. Thorfinn came out from his hiding spot and praised her and all celebrated her courage.
Soon after the attack, the Vikings packed up and moved south to Straumsoy and Hop near Gander Lake on the east side of Newfoundland where their livestock could graze all winter because of the thermal heat. However, after two additional years, the local people escalated the number and intensity of attacks on the Viking settlement causing the surviving members to load their Vinland spoils of furs and berries and sailed back to Greenland. No further attempts to establish a settlement in North America occurred. Thorfinn and his family moved to Iceland for the remainder of their lives.
Freydis made at least one additional voyage back to North America. Greenland Viking voyages of discovery and to harvest timber and furs, gather berries, and fish for cod, which required a winter stay over, continued for more than 350 years until the two settlements on Greenland failed sometime between 1350 and 1400 as a result of the insurmountable hardships caused by the climate change referred to as the Little Ice Age.
Poa pratensis was most likely introduced into North America as seeds in forage or manure during the third Greenland Viking expedition that attempted to establish a settlement in Newfoundland at Straumfjord Vinland and at Straumsoy and Hop led by Thorfinn Karlsefni during 1009 to 1012.
