In search of Thor Heyerdahl
Christiania and Environs: ‘The large Steamers land their passengers near the Custom House at Bjorvik (customs-examination on board)...’
At least that’s how it was in 1909 according to the Baedeke’rs Norwegian guide-book which I stumbled across in an antiquarian book sellers. The book, the size of a small paperback, neatly bound in red with extravagantly marbled page edging, was in pristine condition with barely a blemish throughout – the sea-chest is so much kinder to books than the pocket of a bulging rucksack I imagine.
My arrival in Christiania however, or Oslo as it became known once again in 1925 was none so grand
an affair. An affordable flight to the Norwegian capital and the fastest, cleanest
train I’ve ever ridden had me strolling the City’s wide Scandinavian streets in
less time than it takes to say Eric the Red, or Eirik Raude as he is better
known in these parts.
Ah yes, Eric the Red, the great Norwegian Seafarer. Although born in Norway it is said his family had to flee their homeland because of, as it is so euphemistically put, “some killings”. The family, due to this ‘unpleasantness’ were forced to set sail across the North Atlantic where once again they established a home on the island of Iceland. It appears that Eric was not exactly a model citizen in their new-found home and after several incidents involving a borrowed shovel, a landslide on a neighbour’s farm and the deaths of several of his slaves, amongst other things; Eric was banished from the Island. Together with a small band of followers he crossed 500 miles of ocean until they reached the shores of Greenland giving him the much-contested title of being the first European to explore this desolate outpost on the edge of the New World.
An astute businessman, Eric seized the opportunity to start a lucrative business transporting would-be settlers in Viking longboats to their new paradise. The business boomed and soon the island numbered over 500 new settlers. Unfortunately, for those seeking the promise of a new and better life, food was scarce and at a premium in this land of milk and honey and most of the newly arrived soon perished. Despite this ‘setback’ Eric the Red is still regarded by many as the father of Norwegian maritime adventure.
In the wake of Eric’s longboats many other Norwegians have followed the call to sea and set forth on their own voyages of discovery. Names such as Amundsen, Heyerdahl and Nansen shout from the pages of history alongside those of their modern counterparts; like Stian Aker whose team won the 2008/2009 ‘Race to the South Pole’ – completing the task in a mind-boggling eighteen days.
But for me, since boyhood, it is the journeys of the legendary explorer, scientist and pioneering champion of the environment, Thor Heyerdahl, which have continuously fired my imagination. And so it was on an overcast spring dockside in Oslo’s museum quarter that I finally came face to face with my hero in the guise of a museum dedicated in his honour, The Kon-Tiki museum. Fittingly, the museum can be reached by sea from the city’s port at Radhusbrygge and stands alongside the Maritime museum, the Viking Ship museum and a museum dedicated to the Fram, the very vessel with its steel reinforced hull used by Fridtjof Nansen on his own historic and adventurous polar explorations. On this rocky peninsula of the country’s capital it appears as if the whole nation looks forever outwards, towards the sea and what lies beyond the horizon.
But it was Heyerdahl, or the proof of his existence, which I had come to see. The man whose books filled with adventure had kept me awake night after night through by youth; the man who saw no boundaries in the abilities of human endeavour; the man who had no need to be first to reach the Earths furthest oceans, but rather, to see how our earliest ancestors had done it.
Heyerdahl as an anthropologist had long argued that the inhabitants of the South Pacific Ocean’s many islands may have arrived there from the coasts of Peru by way of rafts made from balsa rather than the accepted theory of their arrival from the West. Heyerdahl’s peers scoffed as such notions; claiming the flimsy rafts would be water-absorbent and their low decks would be swamped by the giant seas. But, like a true Norwegian adventurer, Heyerdahl set out to prove, or disprove his theory.
With the aid of the Peruvian
authorities Heyerdahl constructed a balsa raft in the fashion of those used by
the native Indians living along the country’s coastline. Rafts which the
history books had told him were witnessed by the earliest Spanish explorers on
their voyages to the newly discovered Pacific Ocean.
Heyerdahl’s raft was christened Kon-Tiki, after the Sun-King who according to Inca history ruled the land before the arrival of the Inca themselves then disappeared into the West towards the setting Sun. In a feat of astonishing seamanship Heyerdahl and his team, in sometimes calamitous seas, were driven westward by the prevailing winds until 101 days after first setting sail they were washed ashore on the island of Raroia’s coral reefs. The crew made their way ashore and days later were found by the native Polynesians and given sustenance.
The Kon-Tiki itself, once beached, was rescued and eventually shipped back to Norway where it now stood before me in the great hall of the museum dedicated to its forever famous son, Thor Heyerdahl. It was a pilgrimage for me, my own personal journey of discovery. For me there was no peril; no crashing waves; no fear of sailing into the unknown. But standing beside the flimsy craft, which resembled something built from straw for a carnival parade or a country fete, I knew I had reached my own distant horizon; to stand on the shoulders of giants so that I too may see further.
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