By Ryan Brandt

April 22, 2002 Thor Heyerdahl, intrepid archaeologist and a forefather of modern adventure, died last Wednesday evening of cancer. He was 87.

Born October 6, 1914, in Larvik, Norway, Heyerdahl landed on the world stage in 1947 when he and five others crossed the Pacific Ocean on the balsa-log raft Kon-Tiki in an effort to prove Heyerdahl's theory that prehistoric people from South America could have settled Polynesia.

Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer after falling seriously ill earlier this month, Heyerdahl returned to his home in Colla Michari, Italy, to die peacefully.

Though the Kon-Tiki expedition did little to convince academics that South Americans and Polynesians were indeed related as Heyerdahl suggested, the epic 101-day, 4,300-mile voyage inspired professional and armchair archaeologists to attempt bold recreations of history. Heyerdahl's book on the crossing, Kon-Tiki, won critical acclaim in non-scientific circles and a documentary made about the expedition won an Oscar in 1951.

Heyerdahl continued to offer alternative explanations of the movements and genealogy of prehistoric people with crossings of the Atlantic and other bodies of water on simple crafts. He sustained an ambitious public speaking, archaeological, and research career into the last days of his life. Most recently he hoped to prove that the Norse mythological god, Odin, was an ancient Scandinavian king.

Many of the world's top adventurers credit Heyerdahl with revolutionizing global exploration.

Briton John Blashford-Snell, hailed for his first descent of the Blue Nile in 1968 and a 2,700-mile expedition on the Zaire River, stressed the impact Heyerdahl had on his own adventures.

"Without a doubt it was Thor Heyerdahl's influence and example that inspired us to undertake the great river voyages," he wrote in an e-mail.

"Like many thousands of his admirers around the world, I regarded Dr. Heyerdahl as the embodiment of human curiosity, determination, ingenuity, and courage."

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the British explorer who circumnavigated the world via both poles and completed a 1,350-mile self-supported sled journey in Antarctica, said the Kon-Tiki expedition, film, and book had a profound impact on him.

"I can still remember the effect of seeing huge waves pouring all over the decks of the sinking balsa-wood raft," Fiennes recalled via e-mail. "I later read the Kon-Tiki book and came away with the impression that I should never let strong human opposition to any plan of my own act as a deterrent."

Canadian Colin Angus, 30, who last summer led a rafting team down Mongolia's remote Yenisey River from its mountain headwaters to the Arctic Ocean and previously ventured on a five-year sailing sojourn throughout the world, said reading Kon-Tiki spurred his love-affair with daring water expeditions.

"At about the age of ten, I remember finding a dusty copy of Kon-Tiki in the school library," said Angus in an e-mail. "Definitely, along with other books of nautical adventure, it planted the seed in my young mind to plan my own sea-faring adventure."

"I don't think on any of my adventures has Thor Heyerdahl not come up in conversation or mind. His passing is a great loss but I am sure his philosophies will live on in the hearts of many explorers today."