Live Streaming: Great Adventure in the Wilderness-Chapter 760 - 757: Shipbuilding without Wood

The scorching lava flowed down streets and slopes, carrying with it towering pillars of flame and billowing smoke that surged into the sky.

The volcanic eruption was a tremendous disaster, destroying homes, cities, and entire civilizations, as the fiery lava swallowed everything it touched in flames.

This is the volcano eruption most people imagine, one that arrives with devastation.

However, Nature is balanced.

Volcanoes are so fierce and destructive, yet for this very reason, they create some of the richest and most lush ecosystems in the world.

These ecosystems not only survive but thrive after these violent outbursts from Earth.

On the over one hundred square kilometers of Easter Island, there are three massive volcanic craters, the largest being the Rano Kau Crater with a diameter of about 1600 meters, a depth of over 200 meters, and a water depth of over 600 meters, serving as an important source of drinking water for island residents.

Yet such a volcanic island is entirely a grassland, without any trees taller than 3 meters.

That is also where most of Easter Island's "mystery" originates.

Because anyone who has seen the construction of the Pyramids knows that erecting giant stone statues requires a large amount of timber for transportation and for hoisting stones.

However, botanists found only 47 species of herbaceous plants on the island, the rest being shrubs, which clearly were not suitable for transporting statues.

So theories such as "alien involvement" came to the forefront.

"Of course, that's the explanation that marketing accounts are most eager to push," Bi Fang shrugged his shoulders. As an adventurer like himself who Wandered Around, so-called alien relics were simply absurd.

"The reason there are no trees on Easter Island is entirely due to overexploitation, a prime case study of the struggle between humans and the environment during evolution."

"The only difference is that in this case, the native Rapa Nui people—or perhaps we can say humans—were utterly defeated, not almost, but utterly."

[Humans utterly defeated?]

[How did they lose, detail it]

[Wild guess, deforestation leading to environmental destruction, once it surpassed a certain threshold it couldn't be restored, resulting in a massive extinction of the island's population]

[I traveled back from an hour in the future, spot on, prophet.]

"As for how they were utterly defeated, let's not rush into that. Look over there."

Bi Fang stopped in his tracks, pointing to the distance. After walking for nearly twenty minutes, he finally saw a small patch of woodland in his sight.

True to prediction, the trees were short and remarkably uniform.

But it didn't matter, Bi Fang didn't need to build a large ship; he only needed a single-person raft, and three-meter-tall trees were sufficient for that purpose.

Bi Fang took out a series of tools from his backpack and placed them at his feet.

There were saws, axes, and even planes, all relatively simple crafting tools, all System-made and quality assured.

"I'll use these tools before officially crossing over to improve the quality of the raft or canoe. Once out at sea, I'll be going light."

[Congratulations, Master Fang is finally using tools.]

[Transitioning from the Stone Age to the Iron Age]

[It's over, Master Fang has started using modern tools, I'm officially impressed]

[Fast forward to forging nuclear warheads with a hammer]

[Little Bullet, Master Craftsmanship!]

Easter Island was large, but there weren't many types of trees on the island—mostly palm trees, and they were all rather short. The few that were somewhat larger still seemed lacking.

"For shipbuilding, the lighter and tougher the wood, the better. It should be hard and resistant to decay. Common materials like cedar and pine are good, but often people have to learn to adapt to local conditions."

"On many islands, the variety of trees is quite limited, mostly like Easter Island with its many palm trees. Over time, palm trees can also be used for shipbuilding."

"For example, in Thailand, many villages still retain the traditional craftsmanship of building canoes from palm trees."

Bi Fang wandered around a small grove, trying to select the most suitable trees. They didn't need to be very long, but they had to be wide enough to accommodate at least one person.

He planned to build a canoe first.

However, palm trees over three meters tall were rather unimpressive...

After looking around, Bi Fang felt that these trees were pitifully small. They weren't suitable for a canoe; at most, he could chop down a panel and select a suitable section to make a raft.

"Let's wait and see, and look elsewhere."

With no other choice, Bi Fang had to give up and check other places on Easter Island.

"Ah, the current situation is a consequence of the initial complete defeat."

Bi Fang then resumed the previous topic.

The audience also perked up their ears.

"Easter Island used to be forested, with lush woods."

"According to the records in the Rongorongo script of the indigenous Rapa Nui people, the first settlers of Easter Island were a group of people exiled from other islands in the Polynesian Islands. Their boats carried chickens, taro, bananas, and sugar cane. There were seven leaders, and after many days of sailing, they fortuitously discovered this island."

"Upon landing, they found it to be a place with densely forested areas, filled with tall palm trees, and the forest teeming with various animals. There are three volcanoes on the island, fortunately all extinct."

"This seemingly rich place attracted the seven, but there was one regrettable aspect—the temperature was a bit low, so the nearby seas didn't have coral reefs. Without coral reefs, there were no schools of fish settling nearby, and without fish, there was nothing to catch."

The inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands were seafarers and didn't have the conditions to develop agriculture, so they relied on the sea for sustenance.

The absence of fish was a fatal issue, but it didn't matter much because there were other sources of food on Easter Island, namely dolphins and seabirds.

"Dolphins usually live in the open sea, which is 'deep' not in terms of vertical depth, but in its distance from the shore, in offshore waters. Hence, places like Dolphin Bay are actually quite rare."

[Dolphin Bay was criticized again]

[I heard that the person in charge resigned because of the last incident]

[What's the use of resigning?]

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[I bet they bowed and apologized.]

"Although dolphins are in the open sea, don't forget that these first settlers of Easter Island were exiled from islands 2000 kilometers away, so sailing skills were their forte. Also, the island had many tall palm trees to build large ships."

"Ropes could be made from the fiber of a kind of Tiliaceae shrub on the island, and the fruits of the large palm trees could also be eaten. Every year, the fruits that ripened were too numerous to eat, so they were fermented into wine, and the sap of the trees was sweet, usable as syrup."

"After constructing the large ships, they would go out to catch dolphins, and the island's birds, having never seen humans generation after generation, grew curious and approached when the Rapa Nui people, knives in hand, approached them."

"Everything that followed was predictable."