Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

"Kon-Tiki" is the record of an astonishing adventure -- a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east, led by a mythical hero, Kon-Tiki. He decided to prove his theory by duplicating the legendary voyage. On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five other adventurers...

Although he is afraid of the sea, the son of a Polynesian chief, whose people worship courage, sets out alone in his canoe to conquer his fear.

For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonize these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? For author Christina Thompson, this mystery is personal: her Maori husband and their sons descend directly from these...

"Sophia is like most girls in 1976 New Zealand. How is she going to earn enough money for those boots? Why does she have to give that speech at school? Who is she going to be friends with this year? It comes as a surprise to Sofia and her family when her big brother, Lenny, starst talking about protests, "overstayers," and injustices against Pacific Islanders by the government. Inspired by the Black Panthers in America, a group has formed called the...

"The monumental statues of Easter Island, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island's barren landscape, have been a great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific, have built such monumental works, and moved them from the quarry where they were carved to the coast? And if the island once boasted a culture...