Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) was born in Southern Norway where he studied zoology and geography. He relocated to the Marquesa Islands of the Pacific with his new bride in 1936. Heyerdahl returned home to Norway during World War II to fight for the Free Norwegian Forces in his occupied homeland, and was decorated for bravery.
          After the war, Heyerdahl pursued his theories of the emigration of ancient peoples in the Pacific region by sailing his Kon-Tiki raft from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. The 3,600 mile journey proved, at least to Heyerdahl, that the South Pacific islands could have been colonized by ancient peoples from South America. The expedition caught the imagination of a world through an Oscar-winning documentary and a best-selling book.

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          Heyerdahl led subsequent Pacific archaeological expeditions searching for South American artifacts to help substantiate his theories. A 1953 expedition to the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific west of Ecuador led to discoveries of ceramic pottery suggesting connection to South American Indian cultures. His Easter Island expeditions of 1955 and 1956 were the first significant scientific investigations of the vanished Pacific culture, and again showed some suggestion of South American cultural influence.
 

          Exploring similar theories in new regions, Heyerdahl successfully crossed the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas in his papyrus boat, Ra II, in 1970. The Ra II journey has proven little, except that it would have been possible for ancient peoples to emigrate to American in their low-tech boats, and that Norwegian sailors love to chip away at the sacred status of Columbus.

          An attempt to sail another primitive Middle East vessel a long distance — this time from Iraq south via the Indian Ocean to Africa’s southern tip — in 1978, ended with

Heyerdahl scuttling his craft when political troubles in the region prevented his safe passage. Heyerdahl, echoing countryman Fridtjof Nansen’s service for the League of Nations, flew the United Nations flag on his boats and used his journeys to promote globalism. His burning of his own ship at the Red Sea mouth was his radical commentary about a world unable to overcome its cultural differences.
 

          At the end, it was Heyerdahl’s vision of a global community of man in harmony with nature — he was an outspoken proponent of many environmental causes — that has become the legacy of his adventures. And, like the great Norwegian explorers who have preceded him, Thor Heyerdahl will best be remember for showing the rest of us some new directions.

          Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki Museum can be visited as part of a visit to Oslo. Exhibits include boats and artifacts from Heyerdahl΄s expeditions: the original Kon-Tiki raft, statues and a secret family cave from Easter Island, the papyrus boat Ra II, and archaeological finds from Easter Island, East Polynesia, the Galapagos, and Peru.

          When author/geographer/biologist/zoologist/ecologist/archeologist/adventurer Thor Heyerdahl died April 18, 2002, he became officially elevated to Norway’s pantheon of legendary sea explorers, a hall of fame rivaled in few other countries:
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