Thor Heyerdahl: Explorer and Scientist

I have to admire anyone who would go with his wife (on his honeymoon, no less) to a South Pacific Island to live naked for a year just to find out whether Adam and Eve could actually have done so in paradise. (Yes, but are there snakes in Polynesia?) Thor Heyerdahl--explorer and scientist, as the title claims--is a man who, when admitted through the pearly gates of heaven, will probably stop to take soil samples. Part showman, part adventurer, part archeologist, part Norwegian Viking, Thor Heyerdahl follows the titular hero's career from his famous Kon Tiki voyage between South America and Polynesia through his work on Easter Island, the RA1 and RA2 expeditions, to his modern day work in Peru and Cuba. Anyone who is familiar with Heyerdahl's highly readable accounts of these expeditions will enjoy actual film footage of the adventures themselves. Throughout this engrossing program, we see a man of restless spirit and scientific inquiry, whose character could not be limited by either oceans or stolid academia. A worthy program about a modern Columbus (minus the empire-building avarice and cruelty) whose hard work, vision, humor and environmental awareness has helped make the world a more interesting place to live. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Ray)