Text 4. Thor heyerdahl

Larvik’s favourite son was the intrepid and controversial Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002), the quirky scientist, anthropologist and explorer.

He specialised in epic journeys. In 1947 he sailed 6000 km in a balsawood raft, the Коn-Tiki, from Peru to Polynesia to prove that the South Pacific may have been settled by migrants from South America rather than Asia. His hotly disputed theories - backed up by discoveries of similarities of fauna and cultural artefacts in Polynesia and South America and by the fact that Pacific ocean currents run east-west - ran against the grain of conventional wisdom. The film of his journey won an Oscar in 1951 for Best Documentary and his exploits in the grim postwar years (during WWII, Heyerdahl won medals for bravery in resisting the Nazis) captured the imagination of millions across the world; his book describing the expedition sold an astonishing 60 million copies I worldwide.

Although also renowned as one of the first Europeans to excavate sites on Galapagos and Easter islands, Heyerdahl again grabbed international attention in 1970 when he crossed the Atlantic in a papyrus raft. His purpose was to prove that Columbus may not have been the first successful transatlantic navigator and that even the ancient Egyptians could have accomplished the voyage. His first raft, Ra, sank soon after setting out, but the dogged Heyerdahl was undeterred, successfully completing the crossing in Ra II.

In 1978, the indefatigable Heyerdahl sailed the Tigris from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, down the Persian Gulf and across the Indian Ocean to Djibouti to prove how the ancient Sumerians travelled widely. When he was subsequently prevented from entering the Red Sea due to local conflicts, Heyerdahl set fire to his ship in a spectacular anti-war protest. In addition to his many roles of scientist and explorer, Heyerdahl was a fervent internationalist - his crew was always multinational and his boats flew the UN flag.

On the occasion of Heyerdahl’s 75th birthday in 1989, a statue in his honour was unveiled at Tollerodden, east of Larvik’s harbour. It’s sculpted in blue larvikite, a beautiful 50 million-year-old type of granite which is quarried locally.

Heyerdahl, who believed to his dying day that the world’s oceans ought to be considered one vast highway when studying ancient civilisations, died of cancer in northern Italy on 18 April 2002.

Text 5. Fridtjof nansen

Anyone seeking a modern hero need look no further than Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930), the Norwegian explorer, then diplomat, who pushed the frontiers of human endurance and human compassion.

Nansen grew up in rural Store Frøen outside Oslo, enjoying a privileged childhood. He was an excellent athlete, winning a dozen or so national nordic skiing championships and breaking the world record for the one-mile skating course. Studies in zoology at the University of Christiania led to a voyage aboard the sealing ship Viking to study ocean currents, ice movements and wildlife. Offshore, he gained tantalising glimpses of Greenland that planted the dream of journeying across its central icecap.

That dream of his came true. In 1888, Nansen, then a mere 27, headed a six-man expedition. He wintered over in Greenland and his detailed observations of the Inuit (Eskimo) people formed the backbone of his 1891 book, Eskimo Life.

In June 1893, aboard the 400-tonne, oak-hulled, steel-reinforced ship Fram, Nansen’s next expedition left Christiania for the Arctic with provisions for six whole years. Nansen left behind his wife Eva and six-month-old daughter Liv, not knowing when, if ever, he’d return.

On 14 March 1895, he and Hjalmar Johansen set out in the Fram for the North Pole and journeyed for five months, including 550 km on foot over the ice, before holing up for nine winter months in a tiny stone hut they’d built on an island. On heading south, they encountered lone British explorer Frederick Jackson (for whom Nansen later, magnanimously, named the island where they’d spent the winter). Having given up on reaching the Pole, all three headed back to Vardø.

In 1905, a political crisis arose as Norway sought independence from Sweden. Nansen, by then a national hero, was dispatched to Copenhagen and Britain to represent the Norwegian cause.

Upon independence, Nansen was offered the job of prime minister but declined in order to pursue science, exploration and a planned expedition to the South Pole (he’s also rumoured to have turned down offers to be king or president). He did, however, accept King Håkon’s offer to serve as ambassador to Britain. In 1907, after the sudden death of his wife, he allowed fellow Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen to take over the Fram for an expedition north of Siberia, thus abandoning his own South Pole dreams.

After WWI, Nansen took on large-scale humanitarian efforts: the new League of Nations; repatriating a half-million German soldiers imprisoned in the Soviet Union; and an International Red Cross programme against famine and pestilence in Russia. When some two million Russians and Ukrainians became stateless after fleeing the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, ‘Nansen Passports’ enabled thousands of them to settle elsewhere.

Probably Hansen’s greatest diplomatic achievement, however, was the resettlement of several hundred thousand Greeks and Turks in the wake of the turbulence following WWI.

In 1922 Hansen, surely one of its most worthy winners, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – then gave it all away to international relief efforts. After 1925, he concentrated on disarmament and lobbying for a non-Soviet homeland for Armenian refugees. Although this project failed, he is still revered among Armenians worldwide.

On 13 May 1930, Nansen died quietly at his home in Polhøgda, near Oslo, and was buried in a garden nearby.