Rising Sea Levels: The View from a Canoe

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:



Rising Sea Levels: The View from a Canoe
Decades ago, the legendary journey of the open-ocean canoe Hokule‘a revealed secrets of Hawai‘i’s past and sparked pride in native culture. Now, a voyage around the world offers a new generation lessons about Earth’s uncertain future.

by Sena Christian
posted May 03, 2012


Haunani Kane rises from the hulls of Hokule‘a, the legendary double-hulled Hawaiian canoe. She stretches her back, stiff from squatting in the tight space where she’s been sanding fiberglass. She removes her protective gear and scrunches up her face. “It gets so sticky,” says the 24-year-old. The old Hawaiian proverb komo mai kau mapuna hoe means “dip your paddle in” or join the effort, and Kane is one of a dozen volunteers gathered on this warm August evening at the Marine Education Training Center outside downtown Honolulu to restore a boat that rewrote history.

In 1976, Hokule‘a’s voyage to Tahiti helped prove that ancient Polynesians were not drifters who accidentally discovered the Hawaiian Islands, but expert navigators. The boat launched a cultural revival in Hawai‘i. But when she was dry-docked last year on O‘ahu and stripped down to her shell, she was rotten from sailing 140,000 nautical miles.

Kane is part of a group called Kapu Na Keiki—meaning “to hold the children sacred”—young voyagers who are now helping repair and restore Hokule‘a with the hope of taking her on a four-year worldwide journey beginning in 2013.

A handsome middle-aged man in mismatched flip-flop sandals, a torn polo shirt, and cuffed jeans surveys the volunteers’ work. This is Nainoa Thompson, who was part of Hokule‘a’s first crew and, in 1980, became the first Hawaiian on record in hundreds of years to navigate a voyaging canoe using traditional wayfaring, relying on the ocean swells, waves, sun, moon, stars, and seabirds to cross the open seas. Thompson’s lifelong work has been to demonstrate to Hawaiians how vital, resilient, and strong their traditions are. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/9-strategies-to-end-corporate-rule/rising-sea-levels-the-view-from-a-canoe

[Nihil]

1. Fascinating article - thanks for posting it! (n/t)