Helge Ingstad

Helge Ingstad
Ingstad in his trapper days in the late 1920s (photo taken in 1932 from his book about Canada The Land of Feast and Famine, 1933)
2nd Governor of Svalbard
Acting
In office
28 July 1933 (1933-07-28) – 1 September 1935 (1935-09-01)
MonarchHaakon VII
Prime MinisterJohan Ludwig Mowinckel
Johan Nygaardsvold
Preceded byJohannes Gerckens Bassøe
Succeeded byWolmar Tycho Marlow
Governor of Erik the Red's Land
In office
1932–1933
MonarchHaakon VII
Prime MinisterPeder Kolstad
Jens Hundseid
Johan Ludwig Mowinckel
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Personal details
Born(1899-12-30)30 December 1899
Meråker, Norway
Died29 March 2001(2001-03-29) (aged 101)
Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway
SpouseAnne Stine Ingstad
Children1
Alma materUniversity of Oslo Faculty of Law

Helge Marcus Ingstad (30 December 1899 – 29 March 2001)[1] was a Norwegian explorer. In 1960, after mapping some Norse settlements, Ingstad and his wife archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad found remnants of a Viking settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows in the province of Newfoundland in Canada.[2][3] They were thus the first to prove conclusively that the Icelandic/Greenlandic Norsemen such as Leif Erickson had found a way across the Atlantic Ocean to North America, roughly 500 years before Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. He also thought that the mysterious disappearance of the Greenland Norse Settlements in the 14th and 15th centuries could be explained by their emigration to North America.[4]

Helge Ingstad died at Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo at the age of 101.[5]

  1. ^ "Helge Marcus Ingstad". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Maud was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference springer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Helge Marcus Ingstad Store norske leksikon
  5. ^ Douglas Martin (March 30, 2001). "Helge Ingstad, Discoverer of Viking Site, Is Dead at 101". The New York Times. Retrieved January 1, 2017.