In November 1354 Pål Knutsson was commissioned by King Magnus of Sweden and Norway to travel to Greenland and to assess the state of affairs there*.
Ivar Bardarson was appointed Canon at the Bergen Cathedral after having spent time in Greenland as a substitute for the Bishop of the diocese.
Arne Einarsson Vade, Archbishop of Nidaros, died in 1349 during the Black Death, along with the entire diocese staff and a breakdown in record-keeping means that it is very difficult to tell what was actually happening in the years following the plague.
[4] [5] Some later day historians, including Hjalmar Holand, have asserted that Knutson's expedition may have journeyed deep into North America and created the Kensington Runestone.
[6] ^* Unlike most earlier documents relating to Knutson, this order only survives via a 16th-century Danish translation, so its precise significance is open to interpretation.