The spirit of travel and adventure are perhaps two of the most deeply rooted emotions in the human species. From the time the ancestors left the plains and savannahs of Africa to venture forth into the unknown, the human species have steadily spread all over the world and even beyond it towards the stars. But closer to modern times, it came to a point where only a select few dared to travel, explore and try new and exciting things. One such person was Thor Heyerdahl. It can be said that he was filled with the spirit of travel and adventure, but he did not take the voyages he took in order to discover an uncharted new part of the world, instead he did what he did in order to understand more about how ancestors traveled in the past and to put forth a new theory.
A cherished only child and native of Larvik, Norway, Heyerdahl was born on October 6, 1914, to a mother who worked as a museum director and a father who was the president of a mineral water plant cum brewery. He was deeply cared for by his parents who were said to be overly protective and as reported by the Los Angeles Times, the young Heyerdahl loved to push the boundaries by taking unaccompanied treks in the wilderness with only his pet dog by his side, finding shelter from storms and sleeping in the cold wilderness in order to show that he could accomplish things by himself.
His interest and fascination towards science are attributed to his mother who introduced the young boy to the concepts of Darwin as opposed to the usual children’s stories of the time as reported by the Washington Post. Heyerdahl took up Zoology as a study when he attended Oslo University but in 1936 during a trip that lasted a year, the young adult accompanied by his then first wife started to live off the land in Fatu Hiva which was a part of the Pacific Marquesan archipelago. There, he also began studying the local flora and fauna, but ultimately he began to veer off from an interest in zoology towards cultural anthropology. His stay planted an idea in his mind which he would soon set out to prove.
In the advent of the Second World War, Thor Heyerdahl joined the Free Norwegian military group and served as a parachutist. After the war, Heyerdahl was once again consumed by an idea which sprouted in his mind when he first went to Fatu Hiva. This idea, which he put as theory was that the human population of Polynesia could have come from South America as opposed to the widely accepted theory that they came from South Asia.
Determined to prove the viability of his theory and despite lacking any sailing experience or swimming skills, Heyerdahl set out to recruit a team of six which were made up of his friends and himself. The team proceeded to create a balsa wood raft based on the technologies of the time Heyerdahl estimated the ancients tried the trip in the past, which meant mostly lashing the trunks together with hemp ropes. The finished product was a 30-foot by 15-foot raft which they named Kon-Tiki after the vanquished Peruvian sun god.
With their watercraft ready and a simple radio to help record and report their findings, the team began their voyage on April 28, 1947, when they departed the shores of Callao, Peru. What came next was an adventure that lasted 101 days at sea. The journey was composed of rough weather, rudimentary steering, scarce resources as well as encounters with sharks and even a curious whale. In the end, after traveling for more than 4000 miles across an open ocean, the team lost their raft when it crashed into a reef near a small island in the South Seas where they took shelter. Their successful voyage was used by the skilled story teller that was Heyerdahl himself and turned it into a best-selling book named after their departed raft. It was such a hit that it was translated into over 65 languages as well as adapted into a documentary which won an Academy award. Despite all of the successes from his voyage, Heyerdahl’s proof of concept was shunned and blasted by the scientific community stating that the cultural ancestry of then Polynesia could not be traced to the South Americas even though the trip in itself could have been possible.
Heyerdahl did not lose his sense of adventure, regardless of the scientific community’s response. In 1953, an archeological expedition was led by the Norwegian adventurer towards the Galapagos Islands. Other such expeditions were also undertaken within the next few years when he also led one of the earliest scientific explorations of Easter Island. During these two expeditions, Heyerdahl was able to find more intriguing clues that seemed to link these Pacific Islands to early Ecuadorian and Peruvian Indian cultures. The later trip to Easter Island became the subject of another book that he published called “The Secret of Easter Island”.
Another sea voyage by Heyerdahl in 1969 was an attempt to show that ancient Egyptians and their reed boats could have sailed to the Americas. His first attempt with a papyrus reed boat named Ra-the Egyptian sun god-failed but a year later on the Ra II, Heyerdahl was able to sail from Morocco and arrived in the Bahamas. Towards the 1980s and 1990, he focused primarily on the excavation of the Tacume pyramid complex as well as the Chacona pyramid complex respectively.
Towards the end of his life, Heyerdahl still kept the spirit of adventure which was a large part of his being. His last project was to search for proof that the Norse god Odin was an actual ancient ruler. He published another book on this theory called “The Hunt for Odin”.
By the early 2000s and in an attempt to treat cancer that afflicted his body, Heyerdahl underwent surgery, which was not successful in halting the spread of the disease. After a final battle with brain cancer, he died at the age of 87 on April 18, 2002. Despite not receiving honors from scientific peers, Thor Heyerdahl still left a legacy of travel and adventure that persists to this day.
