I did some searching, not much on OLD history of Greenland then 'boom' I stumbled across info that is very close to what I remembered hearing on the radio...(and I thought I was maybe hearing things?).
I'd guess it wasn't ice-free, but does say it was much warmer...
FWIW
Greenland was home to a number of Paleo-Eskimo cultures in prehistory, the latest of which — the Early Dorset culture — disappeared around the year 200. Hereafter, the island seems to have been uninhabited for some eight centuries.
Icelandic settlers found the land uninhabited when they arrived ca. 982. They established three settlements near the very southwestern tip of the island, where they thrived for the next few centuries, disappearing after over 450 years of habitation.
The fjords of the southern part of the island were lush and had a warmer climate at that time, possibly due to what was called the Medieval Warm Period. These remote communities thrived and lived off farming, hunting and trading with the motherland, and when the Scandinavian monarchs converted their domains to Christianity, a bishop was installed in Greenland as well. The settlements seem to have coexisted relatively peacefully with the Inuit, who had migrated southwards from the Arctic islands of North America around 1200. In 1261, Greenland became part of the Kingdom of Norway. Norway in turn entered into the Kalmar Union in 1397 and later the personal union of Denmark-Norway.
After almost five hundred years, the Scandinavian settlements simply vanished, possibly due to famine during the 15th century in the Little Ice Age, when climatic conditions deteriorated, and contact with Europe was lost. Bones from this late period were found to be in a condition consistent with malnutrition. Some believe the settlers were wiped out by bubonic plague or exterminated by the Inuit. Other historians have speculated that Basque or English pirates or slave traders from the Barbary Coast contributed to the extinction of the Greenlandic communities.
