OSLO, Norway (AP) — Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian adventurer who crossed the Pacific on a balsa log raft and detailed his harrowing 101-day voyage in the book "Kon-Tiki," died Thursday night. He was 87.
Heyerdahl stopped taking food, water or medication in early April after being diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. Relatives said he died in his sleep at a hospital near his family retreat at Colla Michari, Italy.
Experts scoffed at Heyerdahl when he set off to cross the Pacific aboard a balsa raft in 1947, saying it would get water logged and sink within days.
After 101 days and 4,900 miles, he proved them wrong by reaching Polynesia from Peru, in a bid to prove his theories of human migration.
His later expeditions included voyages aboard reed rafts, Ra, Ra II and Tigris. His wide-ranging archaeological studies were often controversial and challenged accepted views. Heyerdahl was busy working, lecturing and traveling until he became ill.
He spent his final days surrounded by family at Colla Michari, a Roman-era Italian village he bought and restored in the 1950s. His permanent home since 1990 was on the Spanish island Tenerife in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco.
Though he lived and worked abroad for decades, Heyerdahl was a national hero in his homeland, a maritime nation of 4.5 million people that voted him Norwegian of the Century in a 1999 newspaper poll. Heyerdahl was a frequent visitor to Norway, where the Kon-Tiki museum in Oslo maintained an apartment for his use.
Heyerdahl was born Oct. 6, 1914, in the southern Norwegian town of Larvik. He was the son of a widely traveled banker and a mother with a scientific bent. He said she gave him anthropology books instead of children's books to read when he was sick in bed.
The school in his hometown was renamed Thor Heyerdahl Secondary School in 1995.
Heyerdahl was taken to Santa Conora hospital on the Italian Riviera nearly three weeks ago after becoming ill during a family gathering at Colla Michari.
At his request, he was released from the hospital and brought back to Colla Michari to spend his final days surrounded by family.
"He wanted to go there — to use his words — because it was time to hang up his oars and ride into the sunset," his oldest son said earlier.
Thor Heyerdahl Jr. said his father had expressed happiness and satisfaction with his life before slipping into unconsciousness on April 16.
He maintained a staggering pace of research, lectures and public debate well into his 80s, even after a major cancer operation in 2001. His third wife, Jacqueline, said he boarded 70 flights in 2001.
His later studies focused on ancient step pyramids — including those in Peru and on the island of Tenerife off Africa — which he believed could show maritime links between ancient civilizations.
He had nearly drowned twice as a child in Larvik and overcame his fear of water only at age 22, when he fell into a raging river in Tahiti and swam to safety.
"If you had asked me as a 17-year-old whether I would go to sea on a raft, I would have absolutely denied the possibility. At that time, I suffered from fear of the water," Heyerdahl once said.
Heyerdahl is survived by his third wife Jaqueline, four of his five children, eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Funeral plans were not immediately announced.