The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west Greenland , where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is thought to have explored the northeast coast of what is now Canada and
The first people on the American continent were homo sapiens. The location and timing is unknown, but there has been archaeological evidence of human life near Norte Chico , Peru some 28 ka. It is known that the first people in the Americas came to the Pacific Coast, likely by canoe