Statue of Leif Eriksson at the HallgrÃmskirkja, Reykjavik, Iceland. Leif Erikson, Leiv Eiriksson, or Leif Ericson,[note 1] also known as Leif the Lucky c. 970 – c. 1019 to 1025, was a Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to have set foot on continental North America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus.