Parts of it were green enough the Vikings could make hay for their cattle, sheep, and horses. And grew barley.
medievalnews.blogspot.com!/2012/05/vikings-grew-barley-in-greenland.html
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At the time of the Norse settlement, the inner regions of the long fjords where the settlements were located were very different from today. Excavations show that there were considerable birch woods with birch trees up to 4 to 6 meters high in the area around the inner parts of the Tunuliarfik- and Aniaaq-fjords, the central area of the Eastern settlement, and the hills were grown with grass and willow brushes. [8] [9] This was due to the medieval climate optimum. The Norse soon changed the vegetation[ citation needed] by cutting down the trees to use as building material and for heating and by extensive sheep and goat grazing during summer and winter. The climate in Greenland was much warmer during the 1st centuries of settlement but became increasingly colder in the 14th and 15th centuries with the approaching period of colder weather known as the Little Ice Age.
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This colony existed as three settlement areas — the larger Eastern settlement, the smaller Western settlement, and the still smaller Middle Settlement (which is sometimes considered part of the Eastern). Population estimates vary from highs of only 2000 to as many as 10,000 people. More recent estimates such as that of Professor Niels Lynnerup in Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, ed. by William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward, have tended toward the lower figure. Ruins of around 600 farms have been found in the two settlements, 500 in the Eastern settlement, 95 in the Western settlement, and 20 in the Middle.
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To investigate the possibility of climatic cooling, scientists drilled into the Greenland ice caps to obtain core samples. The oxygen isotopes from the ice caps suggested that the Medieval Warm Period had caused a relatively milder climate in Greenland, lasting from roughly 800 to 1200. However from 1300 or so the climate began to cool. By 1420, we know that the " Little Ice Age" had reached intense levels in Greenland. [17] Excavations of midden or garbage heaps from the Viking farms in both Greenland and Iceland show the shift from the bones of cows and pigs to those of sheep and goats. As the winters lengthened, and the springs and summers shortened, there must have been less and less time for Greenlanders to grow hay. By the mid-14th century deposits from a chieftain’s farm showed a large number of cattle and caribou remains, whereas, a poorer farm only several kilometers away had no trace of domestic animal remains, only seal. Bone samples from Greenland Norse cemeteries confirm that the typical Greenlander diet had increased by this time from 20% sea animals to 80%
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