***2026 Summer of Sightseeing from my Sofa***
I chose a theme of travel for my summer this year, but regular travel books weren't what I had in mind. Instead, I've chosen an eccentric selection of travel stories, the first of which is Kon-Tiki. I hadn't realized how long ago this voyage was (1947). It was kind of a kooky expedition that only the men on the raft expected to be successful.
This was very much a young man's project, requiring physical stamina and youthful determination. It made me realize how much the world has shrunk in the decades since. Despite their military service, Heyerdahl and his compatriots had only a very rough concept of mission planning or supply chain issues. Their tale of obtaining the large balsa trees to build the raft was an adventure in itself. Building the raft on the coast of Peru and setting out for Polynesia was either daft or brave, maybe both.
Looking at their anthropological theories, I couldn't help but cringe a bit. I would have thought that we were past the age of believing that innovators, inventors, and builders had to be Caucasian in origin. There was a lot of ignoring the generational knowledge of indigenous peoples. On the one hand, they had confidence in Inca balsa log rafts, but no willingness to acknowledge the navigation skills of people on the Western shore of the Pacific. They very much picked and chose the facts that they wanted. (It made me think of Chariots of the Gods published twenty years later, that also assumed that ancient people would require otherworldly assistance to build the structures that we admire today.) I think that modern DNA studies have debunked the idea of South Americans populating Oceania.
My major reason to read this was the zoology, the fish, crustaceans, and whales encountered out at sea. This aspect seems to have been merely an interesting side quest for the Kon-Tiki adventurers. They regularly ate the flying fish that collected on the raft overnight. They fished for dorado and tunny, but had an oddly aggressive attitude towards sharks. I was particularly amused by their collection of plankton, followed by their willingness to haul out spoons to taste it. Jellyfish were not to their taste.
I'm unsure if anything of academic value was accomplished on the Kon-Tiki expedition, but it was surely an amazing adventure. It was amazing that all 6 young men survived the journey, with no severe injuries. As a non-swimmer, I admire their confidence in their watercraft and their willingness to learn as they went. How the world has changed in the last almost 80 years!
