A long journey to discover the secrets of Easter Island

BarcelonaJordi Canal-Soler (Barcelona, 1977) looks at a map and sees things that other people cannot see. “All of this is the Polynesian triangle, which is very large. From New Zealand to Easter Island, Hawaii... These are giant distances. We see a very large sea, but the local peoples saw communication routes. As if they were highways on the sea,” he says. “I really like the entire era of explorations. When Captain James Cook sailed here to understand the world, he was one of the first Westerners to reach many of these islands. And he discovered that all of them, even though we're talking about the largest expanse of water on the planet, shared the same culture. The language and way of life are similar, as if they were the Romance languages of here. That is to say, the local peoples navigated these waters,” he explains.

When he was little, he read all the comics of Tintin and the books of Jules Verne. And he was excited by the trips he took with his parents and two brothers in the late 80s in a motorhome, to England and Norway. Then came the books by Jack London. “I wanted to see the world, like so many other people. I studied biology, but when I finished my degree, I saw that it would be difficult to find work as a biologist,” he admits. So he tried his luck and sent article proposals to magazines like Historia National Geographic. They bought him a first article about the Hawaiian leader Kamehameha and then he saw that perhaps he could live in another way. “On the first big trip I took, I went to Alaska to follow the paths of Jack London and see if there was anything left of all that. And indeed, there were things left,” he adds. Since then he has not stopped traveling.

It was the beginning of a new life that would lead him to write articles, books, and travel guides, work as a photographer, organize reading clubs, or teach travel writing, as well as work as a travel guide or now be the president of the Geographic Society of Catalonia. Curious as he is, Jordi doesn't stay still, always accompanied by his hat, which is reminiscent of Indiana Jones' fedora hatfrom Indiana Jones. When he speaks with ARA, he has just returned from a trip to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, during which he searched for fossils and retraced the route of the American Roy Chapman Andrews in 1925.

Arriving at Rapa Nui

But the place that excites him the most is Easter Island. Or Rapa Nui, as they call it in the local language. “Since I like history so much, I used to read about great journeys of the past. And about Cook. And the desire to visit Polynesia grew. Of all these islands, the one that caught my attention the most is Easter Island, especially for its famous sculptures, the moai, since in other Polynesian cultures the statues are not so large. We know that these statues are the leaders of the tribes, who somehow deified themselves when they died to serve as guardians of the people. But they remain surrounded by a kind of mystery: perhaps it is one of the most remote islands, an island that has lost all its vegetation, a culture almost disappeared... Some people talk about UFOs, the center of the world and energies... None of that. It is a fascinating place without the need for these false theories, it fascinates you to search for truth and evidence there,” he reasons. “We know that there used to be about 15,000 people. Then the Westerners arrived, who brought diseases and people who turned them into slaves. At that time, slaves could no longer be captured in Africa, but they needed them in Peru to extract guano. The Church managed to free some of them, who returned from Peru sick and caused an epidemic. Only 111 people remained. Among the dead were the priests who knew the local religion and traditions,” recalls the Barcelonian. In fact, a Catalan played a key role in this story. “A man from Maresme named Joan Maristany attacked the island and took many men, women, and children as slaves. The local population still speaks of the pirate Marutani, a deformation of Maristany,” he explains about that attack in 1862. “Fortunately, another Catalan, Antoni Pujador from Garrotxa, went there in the 80s and 90s and helped a lot to preserve the local culture. So much so that for this reason they brought a moai to Olot, his city,” he says. Quite a detail, since “the local population demands that the British, French, and Chileans return the moai that they took away.” In Olot, they gifted them one as a sign of respect.

“I am moved by how they continue to defend their identity,” says Jordi. “In February they celebrate Tapati Rapa Nui, a festival to reclaim who they are, with dances, songs, recovered sports, workshops… I went there to interview local artisans and community leaders who defend their language, as the island is part of Chile and there are now more people born on the mainland than born on the island,” he adds. “In the 70s, a movement began throughout the Pacific region to recover and defend Polynesian identity. Also in Hawaii. There, a group of people decided to rebuild a large traditional canoe, an art that had been lost. A double-hulled canoe that could carry more than 50 people, food… and they built one called Hokule'a. The problem was that there was no one left who knew how to navigate like the ancestors did, understanding ocean currents, bird flight, and the stars, without using modern instruments. They started asking all over the Pacific until they found a man in Micronesia who knew how to navigate that way and brought him to Hawaii to learn from him. And thus, they were able to make a journey from Hawaii to Tahiti like their ancestors for the first time in centuries. It gave them a reason for pride that continues to grow,” he explains. It sounds like a children's story. Like the ones he can tell his daughters, with whom he has already traveled a lot around half the planet.