A Great Explorer Passes On

[Dwayner]

I'm sad to announce that one of the great men and explorers of the 20th century just passed away a few hours ago. Thor Heyerdahl was my best friend, hero, mentor (and boss). Like some of you, no doubt, I was greatly inspired by his adventurous expeditions and books (e.g. "Kon-Tiki", "Aku-Aku", "The Ra Expeditions", etc.)

He was truly a fine man.

So here's to you, Mighty Thor! We'll be carrying on without you, but we'll keep the torch lit.

 

Here's a little about the man for those who didn't know him:

 

Thor Heyerdahl, Ph.D., 1914-200x

by

The FERCO* Scientific Committee

*Foundation for Research and Exploration on Cultural Origins

 

Thor Heyerdahl, intrepid Norwegian explorer, anthropologist and author died on April 18th in Colla Michari, Italy. He was eighty-seven.

 

Born on October 6, 1914 in the small town of Larvik, Norway, Heyerdahl was interested in exploration and the Pacific from a very early age. After studying zoology and geography at the University of Oslo, he and his new bride sailed in 1936 to the remote Polynesian island of Fatu Hiva, where Heyerdahl was determined to get back to nature and to study the flora and fauna. While there, he became more interested in how Polynesia was first settled by people and the questions of long-distance migration and cross-cultural contacts in ancient times were to become the main themes of a lifetime of research.

 

At that time, most scientists believed that Polynesia was populated by people sailing from the west directly from Asia. Heyerdahl, however, noted that the winds and currents came steadily from the east and that South American plants such as the sweet potato were to be found in Polynesia. Contrary to the prevailing scientific opinion, he postulated that people could have reached the islands much more easily from the Americas to the east. After serving in the Free Norwegian Forces during World War II, Heyerdahl sailed over 4,000 miles from Peru to Polynesia in 1947 on a balsa-wood raft named the Kon-Tiki, accurately modeled after ancient South American rafts. The voyage of the Kon-Tiki demonstrated that such voyages were theoretically possible. He followed this up with archaeological work in the Galapagos Islands and a landmark expedition to Easter Island in the 1950’s.

 

In the 1960’s and 70’s, Heyerdahl made three experimental voyages in reed ships modeled after ancient seacraft. The first two voyages traversed the Atlantic in the papyrus ships Ra I and Ra II. The expeditions were designed to demonstrate that such ancient craft were capable of surviving ocean voyages carrying both people and their ideas to far-flung lands. With a crew composed of diverse ethnic, religious and political backgrounds, Heyerdahl emphasized the ability for all people to cooperate and also called international attention to the pollution of the world’s oceans. The third voyage, aboard the reed ship “Tigris”, traveled from Iraq to the Red Sea via Pakistan to demonstrate that contact was feasible between the great ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and Egypt.

 

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, Heyerdahl organized and led archaeological projects to the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean and again to Easter Island, and from 1988-94 he investigated a complex of 26 ancient pyramids at Tucume, Peru. In 1994, he moved to Tenerife in the Canary Islands to work on a project to protect and investigate an enigmatic group of pyramids there. At that time, he co-founded FERCO, the Foundation for Exploration and Research on Cultural Origins, which awards annual research grants for scholars to explore the interactions between ancient peoples, primarily by sea.

 

Until March 2002, Heyerdahl continued to work on archaeological projects, and to write, give lectures and take part in public debates; keeping up a hectic schedule that would have daunted a much younger man. He was the author of numerous books and articles, both scientific and popular. Among the best known are “Kon-Tiki”, the story of his epic Pacific voyage which has been translated into 65 languages, “Aku-Aku”, about his work on Easter Island, and “The Ra Expeditions”. His last book, published in 2001 in Norwegian, was called “The Hunt for Odin”, in which he argued that the Norse God was actually a real historical figure.

 

The recipient of many medals, awards and honors from all over the world, he was deeply concerned about the environment and served on the Board of Green Cross International, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev.

 

From the very beginning of his career, Heyerdahl’s work was controversial and was routinely disputed by many scientists. He nonetheless calmly persisted in following his own vision and was always willing to enter into debate with his opponents. In fact, recent archaeological research in many areas is showing that early man was indeed much more mobile than had been previously accepted and an increasing number of scientists are gaining a new appreciation of Heyerdahl’s ideas.

 

Heyerdahl was a man of great personal charisma and charm and an ardent believer in friendship and cooperation across national borders. An important aspect of his research was to listen to and appreciate the oral history of indigenous people, rather than dismissing such lore as mere myth. A man of great integrity, he will be remembered as an original thinker always exploring new ideas and always seeking ways to test and improve those ideas. Additionally, he possessed extraordinary organizational abilities and leadership qualities. He was endlessly curious about the world and equally comfortable chatting with both the leaders of the world and the poorest of its inhabitants.

 

Heyerdahl is survived by his widow Jacqueline Beer Heyerdahl, four children, eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

 

The work of Thor Heyerdahl is featured in the following museums around the world: The Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway, houses artifacts from his expeditions, including the original Kon-Tiki and Ra II experimental seacraft. The Casa de Chacona Museum at the Pyramids of Guimar Park in Tenerife, Canary Islands and Timexpo Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut in the USA both have exhibits dedicated to his research. There is also a small museum at the pyramids of Tucume site in Peru. An on-line bibliography of Heyerdahl’s writings can be found at: http://www.plu.edu/~ryandp/thor.html

The web-site of FERCO can be found at www.ferco.org

 

- Dwayner

[rayborbon]

[Greg_W]

I remember seeing a film about his Kon-Tiki voyage as a kid in school. It was one of the things that got me interested in ancient civilizations and archeaology.

[specialed]

Sounds like quite the badass. Sorry to hear he's gone, but atleast he lived a very full amazing life.

[hasbeen]

I am sorry to hear this and my sympathies to you, Dwayner. One of my earliest memories is of spending hours looking over my Dad's battered copy of Kon-Tiki and being utterly transported to a world of adventure. It is one of the first books I remember and I can still see in my mind many of the pictures. I really think I can trace my love of adventure and, in my own insignificant way, the unknown to that book. I am sure that many others could say the same thing.

[glen]

[Figger_Eight]

[Dru]

[specialed]

Thor's Obit is on the front page of the New York Times. Wow.

[pope]

Tuesday's Club Pub should be dedicated to Mighty Thor!

[To_The_Top]

quote:

---

Originally posted by pope:

Tuesday's Club Pub should be dedicated to Mighty Thor!

---

Yes, he was a great adventurer, Dwayner was talking about Thor at the last one.

TTT

[Dan_Harris]

Fatu Hiva, Kon Tiki, Ra Expedition. These books were my introduction to adventure, testing a hypothesis, challenging the status quo, and challenging yourself physically and emotionally. Thor Heyrdahl will be missed. Heres to Thor

[Retrosaurus]

Dwayner,

You are very fortunate to have had such an amazing man as a friend. I am sorry for your loss.

[johnny]

Dwayner,

[johnny]

Dwayner,

Thank you for letting us all know of this loss. As others have said, he was an inspiration to me as well.

Both recieving life from and giving life back to the blood of our earth has been a passion since I was very young. Thor's adventures, especially Kon Tiki, were some of my greatest reads at that time and helped me dream of life in and around the water. When I was ten, I met a friend of my fathers, Jim Anderson, who was a working marine biologist in Hawii. To me, he seemed a bit like a god come down to earth. He must have known Thor right? Nope. But he had read all his books and talked to me about them with a light in his eyes

I progressed to a lowly fish biologist and managed to kayak only the lower two thirds of the west coast but visions of Thor's thoughts and adventures were never far from my mind. I was never given the opportunity to meet him but always felt a kinship. A love of life? A love of adventure? A love of water? Perhaps it is that both of us have Viking blood in our veins and sunburn too easily?

 

Dwayner, you are a lucky man to have known him.

 

Thor, Skol

[setnei]

A tattered copy of Kon-Tiki is one of only a handful of books that has permanent resident status on my nightstand... What a great example of courage and standing up for one's dreams...

[Dwayner]

The tributes appearing about Heyerdahl all over the world are pretty overwhelming, and I've been quite busy doing radio interviews and so forth.

 

Here is something nice I just received from Professor Peter Capelotti, who recently wrote a fascinating book called "Sea Drift: Rafting Adventures in the Wake of Kon-Tiki" (2001: Rutgers University Press)which documents all of the people who actually went out and tried to imitate some of Thor's original expeditions. Anyway, here are his fine comments:

 

"All explorers have lost a spiritual father. But the memory and inspiration of Thor Heyerdahl will live on in all our hearts, as we seek out our own farthest shores. We have lost one of the three greatest explorers of the second half of the 20th century. But unlike Cousteau, with his submersible, or Hillary on Everest, aspiring explorers of my generation could look to Thor Heyerdahl's expeditions as something we could

imagine ourselves imitating, even if it was only by roping together branches and floating on creeks and rivers near our own backyards.

 

In 1896, Alfred Nobel supported Salomon Andrée's balloon flight to the North Pole because he thought that the very idea of such an expedition would lodge in the brains of other humans and lead to a more inspirational evolutionary path for all humans. This very same notion is Thor Heyerdahl's greatest legacy: the knowledge that humans can envision a different world and then go out and set sail toward it.

 

God bless you, Thor, and speed your passage as you embark on your newest raft voyage. If the mind of God can be found by any explorer, I know that you will be first to find the route, as well as the right vessel to carry you there. I will miss you."