Erling Haaland, trolls and toughness: Why I’m cheering for Norway

In the April of 1947, on a raft made of balsa wood, Thor Heyerdahl and his crew sailed out of Peru. Their destination was Polynesia and their purpose was to prove indigenous people from South America could have journeyed to islands in the South Pacific on such a vessel.

Heyerdahl proved his point and the book he wrote, The Kon-Tiki Expedition (later an Oscar-winning documentary), used to lie among my dad’s assorted collection in Kolkata. Quite fittingly my first introduction to a Norwegian involved a mysterious voyage.