BY KAREN BOSSICK
Learn about Ernest Hemingway in Idaho. Then set your imagination sailing at the feet of a Hawaiian who recently completed a four-year voyage around the world on a traditional double-hulled canoe without the aid of modern instruments.
Ketchum’s Community Library is presenting two programs this week designed to offer a peak into local history and Polynesian history.
- Mary Tyson, director of the Center for Regional History, and Library Director Jenny Emery Davidson will give an overview of Hemingway’s legacy in Idaho and discuss how it continues to matter at 6 tonight—Tuesday, Sept. 24.
They also will share Hemingway artifacts from The Community Library’s archive.
Ernest Hemingway first came to Sun Valley 80 years ago this month. He drove in from Wyoming across Idaho’s lava rock, arriving at the Sun Valley Resort, which was about three years old at the time. He and his new love interest Martha Gellhorn stayed in Sun Valley for three months that first visit as he finished his novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
Hemingway fell in love with the Sun Valley landscape and its people during that visit, starting a relationship with both that would bring him back for another 22 years and even prompt him to establish a home here.
- On Thursday Explorer/Navigator/Environmentalist Nainoa Thompson will tell stories about his rediscovery and revival of the ancient Polynesian art of navigation.
He will also talk about the importance of sustaining ocean resources and maritime heritage.
Thompson is the first Native Hawaiian in 600 years to practice the ancient Polynesian art of navigation, which involves making long ocean voyages in traditional double-hulled canoe without the aid of modern instruments. The traditional voyaging arts had been lost for centuries prior to his work.