A Norse explorer who apparently reached North America about A.D. 1000, Leif Eriksson and his exploits are known through the Icelandic sagas of the 13th century. Eriksson was the son of Eric the Red. He grew up in Greenland but visited Norway in 999, where he was converted to Christianity. One saga reports that he was commissioned by King Olaf I to convert the Greenlanders to Christianity. Eriksson, blown off course on his return trip, missed Greenland, reaching instead North America. A more probable version has Eriksson sailing on a planned voyage to lands west of Greenland that had been sighted 15 years earlier. He landed at what is believed to have been Baffin Island, Labrador, and Newfoundland.