Vatnahverfi (Norse Greenland)
Vatnahverfi was a district in the Norse Greenlanders’ Eastern Settlement and is generally regarded by archaeologists and historians as having the best pastoral land in the colony. The Norse settled the district in the late 10th century and farmed there for nearly 500 years before mysteriously disappearing, likely at some point in the latter 15th century, along with all the other settlements in Greenland. Its name is roughly translated as “Lake District."
Located on Greenland's southwest coast, Vatnahverfi can be broadly thought of as a peninsula stretching northeast from the Labrador Sea to the Jespersens Glacier about 60 km inland and covering approximately 500 km2. It lies between Einarsfjord (today the fjord and the settlement at the fjord's head are both called Igaliku) and Hrafnsfjord (today called Agdluitsoq). The heart of peninsula (60.732307, -45.458640) is approximately 140 km northwest of Greenland's southernmost tip at Cape Farewell.
During the Norse period, Vatnahverfi was peopled by kinsmen of Erik the Red who accompanied him in a large exodus out of Iceland in 985 AD. The Greenlander's Saga states that “men who went abroad with Eirik took possession of land in Greenland” and includes in its list a man named Hafgrim who claimed “Hafgrimsfjord and the Vatna district.” A similar account can also be found in the Landnámabók (Book of Settlements).
Erik and his kinsmen usually established their homesteads away from the Labrador Sea, preferring the inland heads of Greenland's southwest fjords where the temperature was milder and the land better suited to their pastoral way of life. This was largely the case in Vatnahverfi too, with the majority of its homesteads situated in the northern half of the peninsula 30 km or more away from the open sea (though the fjords gave them easy access to it). One point of difference with Vatnahverfi in this regard is that many of its farms were inland on lakes and rivers rather than on the fjords. Archaeologists have identified the remains of 50 Norse farms in Vatnahverfi alone, comprising 10% of the known farms in the Eastern Settlement as a whole.
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