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Helluland is the name given to one of the three lands discovered by Leif Eriksson around 1000 AD on the North Atlantic coast of North America. Helluland was characterized in the Icelandic sagas (the Eiríks saga rauða and the Grœnlendinga saga) as a land of flat stones, or ground of flat rock (from which it earns its name "Helluland" or "Land of Flat Stones"). This leads historians to guess that Helluland was Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.
It has however also been claimed that it is more fitting with Helluland rather being Northern Labrador, and Markland being Southern Labrador (divided by the Groswater Bay/Lake Melville).[1]
From the testimony of the sagas, the Norse explorers probably made contact with the native Dorset culture of the region, people whom the sagas term as skrælings, but it has been held there were no major cultural ramifications for either side.
Helluland was the first of three lands in North America visited by Leif Eriksson. He decided not to try and settle this land because it was inhospitable. He would later continue south to Markland (probably Labrador) and Vinland (Newfoundland or more southern areas[2]).
In September 2008, the local Nunatsiaq News reported[1] archaeological remains of yarn, rats, tally sticks, a carved wooden face mask depicting Caucasian features, and possible architectural remains, which place European traders and possibly settlers on Baffin Island not later than 1000AD. What the source of this Old World contact may have been is unclear; the report states: "Dating of some yarn and other artifacts, presumed to be left by Vikings on Baffin Island, have produced an age that predates the Vikings by several hundred years. So [...] you have to consider the possibility that as remote as it may seem, these finds may represent evidence of contact with Europeans prior to the Vikings' arrival in Greenland."
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