RIP, Kon-Tiki Man

April 18, 2005 marks the third anniversary of the passing away of our dear friend, Thor. I hope you will raise a toast in his honor and reflect on his life well-lived. May he continue to inspire us with his sense of adventure and humanity along with his insightful perspectives on our complicated world: its past, present and future.

Donald Ryan, assistant to Thor Heyerdahl

I will definitely pay homage to Thor this evening! His adventures, no matter how they're been dismissed by contemporary anthropologists, are some of the modern man's greatest triumphs! I originally read Kon Tiki when I was in middle school and I remember being blown away by how cool it was... it still has that effect on me, 25 years later! God bless the memory of Thor Heyerdahl!

Kon-Tiki blew me away so much when I read it I made friends read it, and they too loved it. It reminded me of my attempt to build a huge raft, with my Industrial Arts teacher-to-be in college, and float down the Mississippi a stretch. Unlike Thor we never finished, something about graduating and all. The spirit was there though, if only for a short time. I have a feeling many of the TC'ers have that same kind of spirit or longing to escape to unkown territories.

I always considered Thor the be the Lewis and Clark of the Pacific. Except he wasn't looking for the Northern passage, and he didn't use a canoe. ALso, he didn't have an indian babe to guide him. And I guess that Thor had only water in front of him, unlike L & C (they let me call them that; we're homies) who had not only water, but land to deal with. But IF L & C had made their canoes out of reeds, it would probably not have worked. Other than that, I've always considered Thor the be the Lewis and Clerk of the Pacific (more or less).

It's appropriate that my Kon-Tiki postcard that I bought arrived in the mail today. Beautiful.

A toast to you, Thor, from the crew of the Kon-Tiki, HH! Mahalo for your courage and inspiration.

May your adventures continue in Valhalla.

Cheers to an amazing man! I have been buying and reading his books lately. I finished Kon-Tiki, Aku-Aku and the Ra Expeditions. Am now half way through Fatu-Hiva. What an adventurous life and an inspirational soul he was! Thank you Thor for sharing your experiences with the world and for teaching us so much. You've earned your rest. Peace

website

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-13 12:26 ]

I just finished wathicng Kon-Tiki on a DVD from netflix. It was way interesting. Footage from the actual trip was used so its all in Black and white and has a warm "home movie" feel to it. Quite an adventure those guys embarked on. Those fellas definately qualify as some ingenious adventurers and fishermen. You gotta see the size of some of the fish these guys were catching! Mackers for sure. Although I have to say, I didn't need to see as much of the fish beating that was showed.
I will have to find some copies of Thor's book an give them a good read.
Here's to Thor and the crew of the Kon-Tiki.Thanks for sharing the adventure.

Chongolio

Hey Sven, since your brought up the Thor Heyerdahl anniversary... I think it would only be appropriate for you to share some pics of your Kon Tiki aloha shirt! A lot of us have only caught small glimpses of the "world's coolest tiki shirt" in your Tiki Archaeology video and we need to see more! What's the story behind the shirt?

I just picked up Aku Aku today.

Thor has inspired me as well! I saw an interview with him just before he died, and he was still researching and investigating in Mexico. He had just found bird man carvings almost identicle to the ones carved into the backs of the Moai of Easter Island. Thor also inspired Marcus to start adrift clothing. http://www.adriftclothing.com

On 2005-04-20 15:35, johntiki wrote:
Hey Sven, since your brought up the Thor Heyerdahl anniversary... I think it would only be appropriate for you to share some pics of your Kon Tiki aloha shirt! A lot of us have only caught small glimpses of the "world's coolest tiki shirt" in your Tiki Archaeology video and we need to see more! What's the story behind the shirt?

That's easier said than done. For me, getting ANY visual up on TC is a difficult "high tech meets low tech" procedure:
Though I did get a digital camera finally, I have not learned how to operate it yet, because my only computer, a first generation "orange Frisbee" I-book, cannot process the image files. So I have to use my girlfriend's camera (usually at her house), from which the images are transferred onto her home computer. BUT she can't just e-mail them to me, nooo, somehow they do not open when sent from there, she has to send'em to her store machine, to then send'em to me from there! THEN, when I try to upload them on TC, they come out as red x-es and Al (from Alnshelley) has to fix'em for me!

So, forgive me please, maybe someone else here has the Kon-Tiki shirt and can more easily post it, it came out as recently as 1998 or so, from Reyn Spooner. I even have a bath robe from that fabric (which, since it is a little small, I wear like a Japanese Yukata).

And I myself have been curious about it's origin. Though recently manufactured, the pattern MUST be vintage. No late 90s Aloha shirt designer would have gone through the labour of dissecting Thor's books that way:

The images on it are based on:

A.) The covers of "Kon-Tiki" and "Aku Aku", while carefully (obviously for copyright reasons) avoiding the titles and even only hinting at the Kon-Tiki mask on the sail.

B.) What I like even more, the MAPS of the Kon-Tiki voyage, and of Rapa Nui and it's archeological sites, from the end pages of each of both books,

and C.), all the images are seperated by the same lashed bamboo that crosses the pages for the inside title page of "Kon-Tiki" (before the chapter index).

I have written Reyn Spooner to find out if they know anything about the origin of the fabric design, but they never replied, maybe again because of copyright paranoia.

This also seems to have been the concern of the designers of a cool vintage tie I have, which has the Kon-Tiki masks on it, but on the inside has printed in big letters "Aztec Masks" :)

Yes, Thor was a great man. I have two signed copies of his books from friends that saw him speak, and I am most happy to know that before he died, Don Ryan got to show him the Book of Tiki, and he liked it.

Not the best picture but this is Sven's Kon Tiki shirt.
Mahalo,
al

Sven I don't know if I'm more upset to hear that the shirt is of newer vintage or my perceived prospect that it was a one-of-a-kind relic! How in the hell am I gonna find one now? At least if it was old I could resign myself to the fact that another one would probably never come along...

Al - thanks for the pic!

I'm reading my paperback copy of Kon Tiki right now in Dr. Heyerdahl's honor.

Can someone share the movie with me? I can get the video on Amazon but I'd rather just borrow it from someone if that's cool. Anyone? Anyone?

http://www.plu.edu/~ryandp/Goodbye.html

I will raise a toast to him this evening!

I will do so, also - from this mug! :)

What a great presentation. Thank you Sven. Eric October did a wonderful piece of art with that ceramic book. Cheers, Wendy

Eternal thanks to Thor, one of the great "explorers."

Purchased 1952 print hardbound edition today of Erik Hesselerg's illustrated, "Kon-Tiki and Me." Amazing-great-serious uber-illustrated Zeitgeist trip so far. He was there!

[ Edited by: Haole Jim 2012-04-21 22:01 ]

I wish someone would do Kon-Tiki as a graphic novel. I think that would be cool to see. I know I'd buy it.

For additional toasting pleasure, today's the day the raft departed.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0428.html#article

There may be better places to post this, but anyway here's an unusual tidbit...

#2 on John Lennon's to-do list for a day in May was:

"Ask Sam Green for Thor Hyerdal book (return)" (sic on Heyerdahl)

And that's just below (1) be there for the HBO guy, but well above (5) "Would it be a good idea to make sure BOTH CARS have full GAS TANKS?"

-Randy

To THOR !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUnmjQJHRP4

"No one here shares your belief in Tiki!"

"Have faith..."

have seen this movie....and would recommend it highly....it's a great backstop to the original footage in the original kon tiki...

and yes....i too believe in Tiki..