Who Was the Sea Farer Who Discovered America Before Columbus?

Replica of the Santa Maria from Deposit Photos

You probably know that on Monday, October 13, 2025 people will celebrate Columbus Day in honor of the seafarer who landed in America, as he took a wrong turn in his quest to find India. Many others will celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day in honor of the folks who crossed the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years ago. When I lived in New Mexico, we celebrated Indigenous Peoples' Day.

But you may have missed what happened on October 9th. It was Leif Erikson Day. He was the European explorer who came to America around the year 1000, beating Columbus by a few hundred years. 

While researching my new book, Cars, Cakes, Codes, and Gutenberg: 20 Decodable Poems About Inventions, coming in 2026, I stumbled upon a little-known story about the Viking ship. 

The 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition was a six-month-long World's Fair created to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage. But another fair attraction, a quite subversive one, challenged the long-held belief of that time that Columbus was the first European seafarer to reach America.

When Magnus Andersen, a Norwegian ship captain, heard about the Exposition celebrating Columbus, he decided to build a ship and sail it to America to prove that Leif Erikson, a Viking explorer, could have made the journey in the year 1000. According to the sagas of the Norse, Leif Erikson took a journey west around the year 1000 and discovered new lands. The Norse had long argued that Leif Erikson discovered America well before Columbus, and Magnus set out to prove it.  He raised the money from the public and hired Christen Christensen to make an exact replica of Erikson's longboat.  Christensen used the Gokstad Ship as a model. In 1880, a ship was discovered in the burial ground of a Viking chieftain in Gokstad, Norway. It was determined that the chieftain lived around the time Leif Erikson made his voyage west and that Erikson would have used a similar vessel. They named the new ship "Viking."

Viking Ship Illustration from Deposit Photos

The Viking ship had one upper deck, one mast, and was 76 feet long. Columbus's Santa Maria was between 90-110 feet long with three decks and three masts.

Magnus and eleven other men sailed the Viking from Bergen, Norway, across the Atlantic Ocean, facing sleet, storms, and gales. When they arrived in New York, they travelled up the Hudson River, through the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes. The Viking ship was moored on the shores of Lake Michigan, where many fairgoers visited the vessel. Magnus had proved that Leif Erikson very easily could have been the first European to discover America. He simultaneously made history while rewriting it.

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