1. Helge Ingstad 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.
15 Facts About Helge Ingstad
1. 2.
Helge Ingstad died at Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo at the age of 101.
3.
Helge Ingstad was the son of Olav Ingstad and Olga Marie Qvam in Meraker Municipality in Nordre Trondheim county.
4.
Helge Ingstad was originally a lawyer by profession, but, ever an outdoorsman, he sold his successful law practice in Levanger and went to Canada's Northwest Territories as a trapper in 1926.
5.
Helge Ingstad had read his books from Canada and Greenland with great admiration, and developed a crush on the explorer.
6.
Helge Ingstad wrote to him, and after some time of correspondence and dating, they were engaged, and married in 1941.
7.
Helge Ingstad was a popular author, whose books on his visits to remote parts of the world gained him fame in Norway.
8.
Helge Ingstad visited the Apache Indians of northwestern Mexico, from which he wrote Apache-indianerne - jakten pa den tapte stamme.
9.
Helge Ingstad has two geographic features in North America named after him.
10.
Helge Ingstad was an honorary member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
11.
Helge Ingstad held honorary doctorates at the University of Oslo, Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, and at St Olaf College in Minnesota.
12.
Helge Ingstad was awarded the Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav, Knight of the Order of Vasa, and he was presented with the Norwegian Red Cross Badge of Honour for his efforts in Finnmark during World War II.
13.
Helge Ingstad received a lifetime government grant from the Norwegian government from 1970.
14.
Helge Ingstad was the subject of a 1981 National Film Board of Canada documentary The Man Who Discovered America, and subsequently appeared along with his wife in the 1984 NFB film, The Vinland Mystery.
15.
The inner main-belt asteroid 8993 Helge Ingstad, discovered by Danish astronomer Richard Martin West at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile in 1980, was named in his memory.