Bokförlaget Forum (Wine and Other Beverages)" and Einar Wallquist’s medical book "Våra sjukdomar (Our Diseases)." In 1947, Norwegian ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl made and sailed a raft of balsa wood, called Kon-Tiki, from Peru to the Polynesian Islands. The purpose of the trip was to prove that the Polynesian inhabitants originated from America rather than Asia. In the academic world, most people thought Heyerdal a fanatic and questionable scientist. In 1948, Norsk Gyldendal published Heyerdahl’s story, which then was sent to Bonniers for consideration, Helms managed to persuade Kaj Bonnier to have it transferred to Forum. "Expedition Kon-Tiki (The Kon-Tiki Expedition)" was a
Thor Heyerdahl history, consulting what was then the world's largest private collection of books and papers on Polynesia, owned by Bjarne Kroepelien, a wealthy wine merchant in Oslo. (This collection was later purchased by the University of Oslo Library from Kroepelien's heirs and was attached to the Kon-Tiki Museum research department.) After seven terms and consultations with experts in Berlin, a project was developed and sponsored by Heyerdahl's zoology professors, Kristine Bonnevie and Hjalmar Broch. He was to visit some isolated Pacific island groups and study how the local animals had found their way there. Just before sailing together to the Marquesas