Liv Coucheron Torp was married to Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian Scientist and explorer whose Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947 became one of the enduring adventure stories of all time. That tale, published in 1950 came to the big screen as a documentary and an Oscar nominated drama starring Kirk Douglas.
Liv and Thor met as college students at the University of Oslo and were married when she as 20 and he was 22. After having extracted nervous consent and expedition funding from their parents, the young couple were married on Christmas Eve 1936 and the next morning they left for the most remote and untouched place they could find. The South Pacific island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas lies 1,000 miles from Tahiti and is reached only by an annual visit from a schooner plying the coconut trade. After a year, Liv and Thor were forced to abandon the island and return to the modern world which would quickly include the birth of two sons, Thor and Bamse, and World War II. They wrote a book about their audacious adventure called “Fatu Hiva.”
Charismatic explorers make challenging spouses, and so Liv and Thor divorced shortly before the Kon-Tiki expedition, which Liv had helped organize. Several years later she fell in love with another adventurer and writer. James S. Rockefeller Jr., who had been sailing in the South Pacific for three years and had just finished following the reindeer migration with the Sami people of Arctic Norway while working on a documentary film. They were soon married and the family moved to an old blueberry farm on the coast of Maine. The rugged northern landscape reminded Liv of her native country and they returned to Norway frequently to see family and friends. In 1969, Liv died of melanoma. It was e speculated that perhaps it was a result of her time in the equatorial sun of Fatu Hiva and the nearly fatal skin disease & infection she suffered while there. She was 52.
Liv and Thor met as college students at the University of Oslo and were married when she as 20 and he was 22. After having extracted nervous consent and expedition funding from their parents, the young couple were married on Christmas Eve 1936 and the next morning they left for the most remote and untouched place they could find. The South Pacific island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas lies 1,000 miles from Tahiti and is reached only by an annual visit from a schooner plying the coconut trade. After a year, Liv and Thor were forced to abandon the island and return to the modern world which would quickly include the birth of two sons, Thor and Bamse, and World War II. They wrote a book about their audacious adventure called “Fatu Hiva.”
Charismatic explorers make challenging spouses, and so Liv and Thor divorced shortly before the Kon-Tiki expedition, which Liv had helped organize. Several years later she fell in love with another adventurer and writer. James S. Rockefeller Jr., who had been sailing in the South Pacific for three years and had just finished following the reindeer migration with the Sami people of Arctic Norway while working on a documentary film. They were soon married and the family moved to an old blueberry farm on the coast of Maine. The rugged northern landscape reminded Liv of her native country and they returned to Norway frequently to see family and friends. In 1969, Liv died of melanoma. It was e speculated that perhaps it was a result of her time in the equatorial sun of Fatu Hiva and the nearly fatal skin disease & infection she suffered while there. She was 52.
Liv Coucheron Torp was married to Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian Scientist and explorer whose Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947 became one of the enduring adventure stories of all time. That tale, published in 1950 came to the big screen as a documentary and an Oscar nominated drama starring Kirk Douglas.
Liv and Thor met as college students at the University of Oslo and were married when she as 20 and he was 22. After having extracted nervous consent and expedition funding from their parents, the young couple were married on Christmas Eve 1936 and the next morning they left for the most remote and untouched place they could find. The South Pacific island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas lies 1,000 miles from Tahiti and is reached only by an annual visit from a schooner plying the coconut trade. After a year, Liv and Thor were forced to abandon the island and return to the modern world which would quickly include the birth of two sons, Thor and Bamse, and World War II. They wrote a book about their audacious adventure called “Fatu Hiva.”
Charismatic explorers make challenging spouses, and so Liv and Thor divorced shortly before the Kon-Tiki expedition, which Liv had helped organize. Several years later she fell in love with another adventurer and writer. James S. Rockefeller Jr., who had been sailing in the South Pacific for three years and had just finished following the reindeer migration with the Sami people of Arctic Norway while working on a documentary film. They were soon married and the family moved to an old blueberry farm on the coast of Maine. The rugged northern landscape reminded Liv of her native country and they returned to Norway frequently to see family and friends. In 1969, Liv died of melanoma. It was e speculated that perhaps it was a result of her time in the equatorial sun of Fatu Hiva and the nearly fatal skin disease & infection she suffered while there. She was 52.
Liv and Thor met as college students at the University of Oslo and were married when she as 20 and he was 22. After having extracted nervous consent and expedition funding from their parents, the young couple were married on Christmas Eve 1936 and the next morning they left for the most remote and untouched place they could find. The South Pacific island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas lies 1,000 miles from Tahiti and is reached only by an annual visit from a schooner plying the coconut trade. After a year, Liv and Thor were forced to abandon the island and return to the modern world which would quickly include the birth of two sons, Thor and Bamse, and World War II. They wrote a book about their audacious adventure called “Fatu Hiva.”
Charismatic explorers make challenging spouses, and so Liv and Thor divorced shortly before the Kon-Tiki expedition, which Liv had helped organize. Several years later she fell in love with another adventurer and writer. James S. Rockefeller Jr., who had been sailing in the South Pacific for three years and had just finished following the reindeer migration with the Sami people of Arctic Norway while working on a documentary film. They were soon married and the family moved to an old blueberry farm on the coast of Maine. The rugged northern landscape reminded Liv of her native country and they returned to Norway frequently to see family and friends. In 1969, Liv died of melanoma. It was e speculated that perhaps it was a result of her time in the equatorial sun of Fatu Hiva and the nearly fatal skin disease & infection she suffered while there. She was 52.
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