"Sigtrygg Thorgilsson, half-Inuit, half-Norse grandson of Leif Eiriksson, returns from Greenland's northern wilds only to be strong-armed by his father's half-brothers into accepting Leif's long lost landfall in North America as his patrimony in lieu of the small farmstead that's rightfully his and which his would-be lover, Thjodhild, had pressed him to reclaim."

Overview:

This multi-season series proposal, to be called, simply, Vinland, is based on my novel, first published in 1998, The King of Vinland's Saga, which tracks the adventures of the mixed-blood Greenlander, Sigtrygg Thorgilsson, as he struggles to re-establish the small colony which Norse folk out of Greenland had tried to build on North American shores some 40 years earlier -- a colonizing effort which collapsed after only three years. But Sigtrygg's vision is different than theirs because of his own mixed heritage which calls to him through the native people he falls in with. Yet he discovers he's not quite done with his Norse side when his Greenland kin re-appear and old grievances emerge once more, forcing him to choose whether he belongs with his Norse kinsmen or with those folk who have made a place for him in their midst.

This story, mixing the American Western film genre with the Norse saga tradition of old Iceland, blends high adventure with a passionate tale of jilted lovers set against a backdrop of disputed claims and blood feud as it follows one man's quest to carve a place for himself in an unforgiving world.

Available:

Full story synopsis; story outline; treatments for the first three episodes and partial treatments for later ones; as well as a completed screenplay for the pilot episode (done in Final Draft-12 for ease of review)

I own all rights to the novel on which this proposal and my screenplay, registered with the WGA East Coast Division, are based.

Actual shooting can, to a large extent, be done on location in Canada to take advantage of Canadian financial incentives for the film industry (although some of the story is set in Greenland and much of it in Maine).