Thor Heyerdahl

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Bygdoy Peninsula: Kon-Tiki

I waited at the dock for the 9:10 ferry to Bygdoy.

There are three museums that focus on maritime history and I was really looking forward to seeing and sketching a balsa wood raft that was captained by a famous Norwegian.

While I spent some time at the Fram and the Norwegian Martime Museums, I was really here to see the Kon-Tiki!

Before my trip I had read Thor Heyerdahl’s book about the adventure, seen two movies about the trip, including the Oscar winning documentary by Heyerdahl. I had done sketches about the raft and its captain and now I was about to see the actual vessel.

Heyerdahl’s Academy Award for best documentary.

The first time I remember reading about the Kon-Tiki was from a Time-Life book called Dangerous Sea Creatures. In the book was an excerpt from Heyerdahl’s massively popular account of the voyage. The passage was about the crews first encounter with a whale shark (this certainly is not a dangerous sea creature!).

The sail with Kon-Tiki painted on it.

It was amazing to see the famous balsa raft in person that I had read about and which was also featured in the Oscar winning documentary about the voyage. The story of the Kon-Tiki is almost unbelievable had it not been documented. The heroism that the crew engendered on a journey that could very well have ended their lives and at a time when there had very rudimentary forms (ham radio) of communicating with the mainland.

The Bell & Howell film camera Heyerdahl used to film the documentary.

I started a sketch of the Kon-Tiki head on and was not pleased with progress so I aborted the sketch and picked a different perspective. I choose a seat on the starboard side near the stern. With a change of perspective, I was able to add the mythic raft from my childhood to my journal (featured sketch).

Another ship on the Bygdoy Peninsula was to be found at the Fram Museum. This was the ship that Roald Amundsen sailed through the Northwest Passage named the Gjoa. In 1909, the ship was donated to the city of San Francisco where it was on display at the western edge of Golden Gate Park until 1972. The ship was then given back to Norway where it is now on display in a large A-frame building at the Fram Museum.

Sketching the Gjoa was a bit of a challenge as I could get far enough away from the ship to capture the hull and mast so I sketched the deck from the port side stern.
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Kon-Tiki

Rafts, boats, and ships.

Things that float (sans Titanic).

How about a balsa wood raft? How about sailing it across the Southern Pacific Ocean?

Is this the definition of insanity? Well not if you’re a Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer named Thor Heyerdahl.

Thor was a boss, a man with vision, a man who looked in the face of reason and “truth” and created his own truth. He will always be a visionary that is blessed to us once in a generation; if we’re lucky.

To prove that Polynesia could have been colonized from South America, in 1947, Heyerdahl and five others (including a parrot named Lorita), sailed a balsa wood raft over 4,000 miles across the Pacific. The raft was named the Kon-Tiki.

The expedition set off from Callao, Peru on April 28, 1947. The raft sailed for 101 days covering 4,300 miles. The journey ended as the craft smashed into a reef at Raroia on August 7, 1947.

The Kon-Tiki is now displayed at the Kon-Tiki Museum on the Bydoy Peninsula in Oslo, Norway. The Kon-Tiki is one of my top sketching targets on my summer trip to Norway.

I find it serendipitous that the best way to get a museum dedicated to an epic sea voyage is by ferry. Also on the Bydoy Peninsula are the Vikingskipshuset, the Norwegian Martine Museum, and the Fram Museum

I did a sketch of Thor, wearing the Tiki mask that is painted on Kon-Tiki’s sail. I sketched with a bamboo dip pen and I’m pleased with the rustic, and sometimes uncontrollable looking lines.