I'm following the route taken by Erik the Red, the Viking explorer who discovered and then settled Greenland, according to the sagas, at the end of the first millennium. The journey from Norway (where Erik was born) via Iceland (where he spent much of his adult life) to Greenland will take me eight to nine weeks. Ultimately, I plan to write a book that brings Erik's journey back to life. To that end, there's a lot that I want to do during my travels. Of course, I will be visiting archaeological sites and museums, talking to archaeologists and visiting Norse house reconstructions. I'll also be talking to people who live in the regions nowadays. I want to know how you farm in the very remote areas that Erik lived in; what grows that you can eat? What, of that, did the Norse import? What impact does farming have on the landscape? What can you hunt, and what are the impacts of that? How tough is survival?

Then there's the question of religion. Erik was not Christian, but his wife converted and a small chapel was built near their house in Greenland. It was a cause, apparently, of much marital tension! I'm intrigued by many aspects of this. I want to know more about Norse beliefs - what sort of a spiritual world did Erik see around him? Then there's the story of Iceland's conversion to Christianity: one day in the year 1000 it was decreed the national religion, but how much did the Norse gods live on after that?

Finally, there's a mystery about the Norse settlement of Greenland: why did it end? About five hundred years after Erik's settlement, it ceased to exist. People have postulated climate change, warfare, or human damage to the local environment. Whatever it was, I would like to find out more about how the Norse interacted with their Inuit neighbours (whose oral history perhaps includes some material about the Norse colonists). I'd like to find out more about how Greenlanders, of whatever descent, approach hunting, farming and living in their world today, and how that is being affected by increasing climate change.