On Tollerodden, a small peninsula at the heart of Larvik's harbour, stands a five-metre monument to the town's most famous son. Sculptor Nico Widerberg carved round pillars representing the Kon-Tiki raft, rising from an undulating wave-like base, topped with a portrait head inspired by the moai stone statues Heyerdahl studied on Easter Island. The monument is carved from larvikitt, the distinctive blue-shimmering igneous rock native to the Larvik region, tying explorer to homeland in the very material. It was unveiled in 1989 for Heyerdahl's 75th birthday.
Thor Heyerdahl was born here on 6 October 1914, the son of a master brewer and a zoologist. At age seven he created his own little museum in an outhouse at his father's brewery. In 1947, he sailed a 45-foot balsa wood raft named Kon-Tiki from Peru across 4,300 miles of Pacific Ocean in 101 days, crash-landing on Raroia atoll. All six crew survived. His documentary won the 1951 Academy Award. He later sailed papyrus reed boats across the Atlantic: Ra I in 1969 had to be abandoned 600 miles from Barbados, but Ra II in 1970 completed the full crossing in 57 days.
His final expedition, the reed boat Tigris in 1977, navigated from Iraq through the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. After five months, Heyerdahl deliberately burned the Tigris in Djibouti as a protest against the wars raging across the Horn of Africa, writing to the UN Secretary-General: today we burn our proud ship to protest against the inhuman elements in the world of 1978. He was appointed honorary citizen of Larvik in 1971 and died in Italy in 2002.
Thor Heyerdahl was born here on 6 October 1914, the son of a master brewer and a zoologist. At age seven he created his own little museum in an outhouse at his father's brewery. In 1947, he sailed a 45-foot balsa wood raft named Kon-Tiki from Peru across 4,300 miles of Pacific Ocean in 101 days, crash-landing on Raroia atoll. All six crew survived. His documentary won the 1951 Academy Award. He later sailed papyrus reed boats across the Atlantic: Ra I in 1969 had to be abandoned 600 miles from Barbados, but Ra II in 1970 completed the full crossing in 57 days.
His final expedition, the reed boat Tigris in 1977, navigated from Iraq through the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. After five months, Heyerdahl deliberately burned the Tigris in Djibouti as a protest against the wars raging across the Horn of Africa, writing to the UN Secretary-General: today we burn our proud ship to protest against the inhuman elements in the world of 1978. He was appointed honorary citizen of Larvik in 1971 and died in Italy in 2002.
