Tag Archives: Hilo

Canoe, History, Sustainability, Travel, Where We Live

Sailing On The Haunui

June 20, 2011 Leslie Lang 3 Comments

After writing here about the voyaging canoes that just arrived in Hilo from Aotearoa (New Zealand), I really wanted to go down to the bayfront yesterday to help welcome them.

There are seven voyaging canoes at Hilo Bay right now. They left Aotearoa in April, led by traditional-style navigators from around the Pacific, on a journey called Te Mana O Te Moana (The Spirit of the Sea). Their voyages, which are being filmed for a documentary, are being made to raise awareness about our ocean environment and the need to care for it.

And of course, their journeys celebrate the revival of traditional navigation.

The official welcoming ceremonies started yesterday morning. There were hakas by some of the voyagers, and speeches of welcome, and more.

Chad “Kalepa” Baybayan, Navigator-in-Residence at Hilo’s ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, told the crowd that Nainoa Thompson had called from Honolulu that morning, apologizing because he couldn’t be there. He’d been up all night with a sick child, and then just as day broke, his other child had woken up sick.

Nainoa Thompson, of course, is the master Hawaiian navigator who was at the very forefront of bringing back the long-lost art of traditional Polynesian navigation.

The seven vaka/wa‘a/canoes were lined up there in the bay, and seeing them there made me wonder how many times in the distant past there had been similar sights there. Many, I’m sure.

Lots and lots of people from the community came out to welcome the canoes, and all the local canoe clubs were there, and it was a neat place to be.

After awhile we left, but then a couple hours later we happened to drive past the bayfront again and I could see from Kamehameha Avenue that the wa‘a all had their sails unfurled. “Let’s go see what’s happening now!” I told my 7-year-old, and we turned in.

They were taking people out on the canoes, that’s what was happening. It was great!

We hopped in line and got to go for a sail around Hilo Bay on the Haunui, or “Big Wind,” as one of the crew members translated it. It’s the canoe that was crewed by people from several different island nations.

It turned out that Ka‘iu Kimura, executive director of the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, happened to come along for a ride at the same time as us, and we chatted for a bit. She’s going to be on one of the canoes when it leaves Hilo Tuesday. They will stop at a couple other islands and then she will continue with it until O‘ahu.

“Are you a canoe person?” I asked her, and she said no, not really, and then told me that she’d sailed with the Hokule‘a back when it voyaged to Japan. That was a month’s journey, and included her getting to meet her Japanese relatives she’d never met before. Wow! What a way to arrive.

We got to go down below on the canoe and see where they sleep. It’s such a small space. One of the crew members said he thinks the bunks must be 6’4” long, because when he lies down he touches both ends. And they are narrow, as is the walkway between.

The narrow walkway between the bunks is filled with jugs of fresh water, which you have to walk atop.

It was so great to get to see the wa‘a. “A once in a lifetime experience!” I overheard a man say into his cell phone, as he told someone about what was going on there.

I totally understood his enthusiasm, but you know what? It really wasn’t something we’re only going to see once. It’s happening a lot now. These and other voyaging canoes are moving around the oceans, and we will keep seeing them.

Traditional Polynesian voyaging, this method of wayfinding and journeying that originated with wise ancestors who lived long, long ago, is back and it’s strong. The new generations are learning it, in different places and on many different islands, and it’s not likely to be lost again.

Along with these skills of being able to find one’s way across a vast ocean without GPS, and not having to depend on oil, comes a lot of other strengths. It is such a positive thing.

And getting a glimpse of that yesterday – learning a little bit about what it looks like, feels like and smells like to sail through the water – was a wonderful experience.

It’s great to see that this traditional knowledge is alive and well; and also that it’s such an integral part of the fabric of Hawai‘i (and other Pacific island groups) again.

Canoe, Hawaiian Role Models, History, Sustainability, Travel, Where We Live

They’re Here! Vaka Welcome Ceremonies Are Sunday

June 17, 2011 Leslie Lang 1 Comment

There’s something historic, and very interesting, going on in Hilo this weekend. Do you know about the vaka? The canoes?

They are seven Polynesian-style canoes, representing different Pacific Islands, and all built in the last two years for this particular mission. Their crews have spent the past two months voyaging from Aotearoa (New Zealand) to Hawai‘i, and Hilo is their first landfall. They arrived yesterday at Hilo Bay.

They are calling their journey Te Mana O Te Moana. “The Spirit Of The Sea.”

“…Several thousand years ago, the Polynesian ancestors traveled the Pacific on great voyaging canoes, called vaka moana, using only the stars, the ocean, and the surrounding wildlife to navigate, and lived closely connected to the sea. In crossing the Pacific from Aotearoa to Hawai’i, we aim to sail in the ancestors’ wake and learn from their wisdom. We want to teach young people about this old bond with the sea.”

Richard went by yesterday, and saw five of them already moored and latched together. “I watched the last two canoes, with their sails down, tie up,” he said. “They had someone blow the conch shell as they approached. People seemed very much aware of the historical nature of this event.

(Renowned hula master Pua Kanahele)

“The canoe folks stayed on board and some did special ceremonies, ending with each person hugging the rest individually. I left after they all arrived,” he said. “But more and more people were coming by to participate in history being made.”

(Sitting: Patrick Kahawaiola’a, President of the Keaukaha Community Association)

The public is invited to be a part of the official welcoming ceremony on Sunday at Hilo One (“Hilo O-nay.” “One” is the Hawaiian word for sand). Ceremonies at the bayfront beach start at 8 a.m. on the water. Then the vaka will sail to shore, anchor, and come ashore for on-shore activities at 10 a.m., which are scheduled to run through about 2 p.m.

(Palekai is the beach park near where the canoes moored yesterday.)

Kalepa Baybayan, Navigator-in-Residence at Hilo’s ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, said that the welcome ceremony is both so the community has a chance to see the seven canoes on the water, and also as an official exhange between our community and the ones arriving. “To formally welcome them to Hawai‘i, and Hilo,” he said.

“It’s a rare event,” he said, “and will probably never happen again in our lifetime. Seven canoes from the south Pacific sailing to Hawai‘i. This is a first.”

From the website:

“We’re sailing across the Pacific to renew our ties to the sea and its life-sustaining strength. The ocean is the origin of life, and it continues to give us air to breathe, fish to eat, and nourishes our soul as well. As threatened as the ocean is now, however, it soon can no longer provide us with these essential life services. Sailing together, we seek the wisdom of our ancestors and the knowledge of scientists to keep the Pacific healthy and give our grandchildren a future.”

Sailing across the Pacific on seven vaka is to raise awareness about the state of the ocean developed gradually. Dieter Paulmann, the founder of Okeanos – Foundation for the Sea, has felt a strong connection to the sea for his whole life.

Richard met and had lunch with Dieter the other day, and said they have some things in common. “Mostly around how to deal with finite resources in a way that is beneficial for future generations,” he said.

“Dieter’s using the vaka voyage as a way to educate the people of the world about the urgency of changing our approach,” he said. “We are living in a world of limited resources. We need to utilize our resources in a wise way, in a way that benefits future generations. We all know this deep in our na‘au.”

“I told him that here in Hawai‘i we are trying to maximize the use of geothermal for the benefit of future generations,” he said. “We both agree that people are starting to look at things in a different way. No one feels comfortable about the prospects that one’s children and grandchildren will live a lesser life than we did.

“We need to do what we can to ensure their lives are fulfilling,” he said. “And we can do that, but we need to take action now. I thought to myself, That is why I am involved with Ku’oko‘a. It is a way for our children, grandchildren and future generations to have a better life.”

Before he knew anything about this voyage, Richard wrote these words on the Ku‘oko‘a website: “We are embarking on a great journey, much like the ancient people who sailed to Hawai‘i hundreds of years ago. Like them, we are searching for a better tomorrow for our children, grandchildren and generations to come. We will find the place where the Aloha Spirit can thrive because we go with open hearts and minds.” Kind of fitting and cool, huh?

The Voyage’s Goal:

The vaka will sail to raise attention for the bad state of the Pacific, the crew will transport a message to the world, saying that we have to act now to be able to preserve a healthy ocean for us and our children. Otherwise, if the ocean dies, we die. The crew will carry this message to our conference “Kava Bowl” Ocean Summit 2011 in Hawai’i about the consequences climate change on ocean will have if we go ahead with our business as usual. The crew will participate in the conference, contributing with their experience and their thoughts, learning from other people at the conference at the same time.

The Motto:

The motto for the whole project, which reflects the spiritual thinking in Polynesian culture about the sea, which has the same life-force running through its water as runs through our bodies, and how to treat this precious resource to not disturb Tangaroa, the God of the Sea. The following saying is a poetic way to say “be respectful and gentle:” “Move your paddle silently through the water.”

Here’s a video about how they set up the voyage. Richard commented, “It’s very technically proficient. Looks like the objective is to encourage sailing this way – without using oil.”

Baybayan says this event represents a transfer of knowledge from Hawai‘i, which was really the leader of the modern-day voyaging revival. “It’s a transfer to all these different offspring, these families that have sprung up,” he says. “The seven different canoes represent seven different island groups.”

Read more about some of these islands’ preparations, and their journeys, in these articles from around Polynesia:

Samoa News

Samoa Voyaging Society blog

Fiji Islands Voyaging Society

Cook Island News and also this

Tahiti Times

Waatea 603AM – Auckland’s Urban Māori Radio & News Station

Does anyone sketch? Check out this great sketch of one of the canoes, and see a challenge to sketch it here in Hawai‘i!

See you down at the Bayfront on Sunday morning? I’ll be there!

Big Island, Biofuel, Community, Geothermal, Peak Oil

Hawaiian Perspectives in Support of Geothermal

May 30, 2011 Richard Ha 2 Comments

Over the weekend I was on the panel of a Hilo Community meeting called “Hawaiian Perspectives in Support of Geothermal Development.” It was held at the UH Hilo, and I estimate that about 50 people attended. By far the majority of the folks there were in favor of geothermal development, provided it is done in a pono way.

Each panel member spoke about his/her area of interest.

From left to right, this is Wallace Ishibashi, co-chair of the Geothermal Working Group, and member of the Royal Order of Kamehameha; Robert Lindsey, Big Island OHA trustee, Geothermal Working Group member; Mililani Trask, Hawaiian legal rights attorney and consultant to Innovations Development Group.

I talked from the point of view of a banana farmer who, five years ago, found his operating costs rising, and attended three Peak Oil conferences to learn how to position his business in a future of rising oil prices.

I talked about how there are serious outside forces at work. The world has been using twice as much oil as it has been finding, and has been doing so for the last 20 years. The winds of change will soon be blowing and oil prices will be rising. It is very serious, and we cannot afford to insist on individual agendas. It is no longer about us now; it is about future generations.

There are many ways that we can deal with depleting oil.

HECO’s plan of fueling with biofuels will cause electricity rates to rise. Rising electric rates means that folks on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder will be the first to have their lights shut off.

There are people who advocate small scale, individual solutions to energy independence. This approach will encourage those who are able to leave the grid to do so, and leave the folks that are unable to leave to pay for the grid.

Another, much better, alternative is to bring more geothermal on line. Geothermal is proven technology, clean and lower in cost than other base power solutions. The more geothermal we use, the more we protect ourselves from future oil shocks.

I told the group what I had asked Carl Bonham of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization: If we can maximize geothermal as our primary source of base power, will we become relatively more competitive to the rest of the world as oil prices rise? He said yes.

I told the group that we are lucky to have the options that we have, especially geothermal. Very few in the world are as lucky.

In modern Hawaiian history, our economy has taken, taken, taken and the culture has given given given. We are at a unique time now when the economy can give and the culture can receive.

Do we dare dream of prosperity for future generations? I believe that most felt that geothermal was the way to get us there.

There are a thousand reasons why “No can.” We are looking for the one reason why “CAN!”

Community, Contest, Hawaiian Role Models, Music, Where We Live

Merrie Monarch 2011

May 6, 2011 Leslie Lang 1 Comment

Hilo just finished hosting hula dancers and admirers from around the world at its annual Merrie Monarch hula festival.

It’s so great to see how Hilo comes alive for that Merrie Monarch week, which is held each year around Easter. The streets overflow with people, many of them Hawaiian, in their designer aloha wear, flower leis and lauhala hats. Everything that is good about the place — the people, the leis, the music, the dancing — is magnified and multiplied. It’s everywhere. It’s wonderful.

From Wikipedia:

The Merrie Monarch Festival is a week-long cultural festival that takes place annually in Hilo, Hawaii. It honors King David Kalākaua, who was called the “Merrie Monarch” for his patronage of the arts. He is credited with restoring many Hawaiian cultural traditions during his reign, including the hula. Many hālau hula (schools), including some from the U.S. mainland and Japan, attend the festival each year to participate in the festival exhibitions and competitions, which are considered the most prestigious of all hula contests. Read the rest

The hula always starts on Wednesday, with a free Ho‘ike (demonstration) night. Watch this year’s Ho‘ike highlights from Big Island Video News here, and some of Halau O Kekuhi’s dances from that night here. They are renowned, and what a treat to see them.

Some other videos from this year’s Merrie Monarch:

This is Halau Hula O Kahikilaulani, of Hilo (It’s their kahiko performance)

Chinky Mahoe’s Kawaili‘ula, from Kailua, O‘ahu (kahiko)

And there’s always a wonderful Merrie Monarch Parade through Hilo town. See some of that here: 2011 Merrie Monarch Festival Grand Parade

It’s never too soon to start thinking about attending Merrie Monarch the next year, if you’re interested. Mark your calendars: tickets are available to purchase by mail only, and your ticket requests must be postmarked on December 26 or later. (If they are mailed later, you might not get seats; it’s best if you email your request on 12/26 exactly.)

Ticketing info is not yet updated for the 2012 festival, but watch this space later in the year if you’re interested in knowing exactly how to order.

Where We Live

Watch The ‘Cloudcam’

January 19, 2011 Richard Ha

This time-lapse video was taken by the Canada France Hawaii telescope’s cloud cam at night, outside facing toward Hilo.

Click here to view the short, 1:48 movie.

Awesome.

History

Hilo Sampans Then and Now

October 22, 2010 Richard Ha 2 Comments

Gordon “Da Sampan Man” Cline came to visit on Tuesday. He lives in Santa Barbara, California and owns one of the old Hilo sampan buses. I bought the sampan bus that was at the Lyman Museum at an auction several years ago.

He has managed to track down every one of the 12 sampan buses that are still in existence. He dropped off some news articles and we looked at pictures of the other buses.

Here’s a picture of our sampan and Chef Peter Merriman (right), as well as Assistant Chef Dan Salvador (left) and Chef Neil Murphy (middle).

This article was in the Honolulu Advertiser on June 21, 1959:

Hilo’s Sampan Buses
These special conveyances provide colorful transportation
By RON BENNETT

There’s nothing more distinctively Hilo than a Hilo Sampan bus.

They are an immediate delight for Visitors who’ve never seen anything quite like them before. You often see tourists congregating around a “captured” sampan. Snapping pictures for the folks back home.

For kicks the vacationers some times jump into one of the open air Jitneys and take a Hilo bus ride.

Hiloans regard their sampans bus system something in the possessive fashion that Bay City dwellers view their trolley cars.

A big hullabaloo was raised back in 1949 when exasperated Hawaii county officials tried to enforce some rhyme and reason in bus routes, pick ups and fares.

For decades the jitneys followed no set courses. They moseyed around town in a haphazard manner, picking up customers at random and taking them to entirely incompatible destinations.

Drivers complained of colleagues rustling their customers and invading vaguely defined boundaries of priority. Some were accused of cut throat tactics. And other types of unprofessional conduct.

In a nutshell, mass public transportation in Hilo was a mess.

However, some patrons—particularly those on better populated, thus better served streets—objected to any governmental changes that might adversely affect their good bus service. On rainy days they could depend on drovers taking them right up to the doorsteps, a service doomed under governmental controls.

Controls had to come and they did. Officials named a distinguished World War ll veteran, Tsuneo Takemoto, as director. With Italy behind him, he soon brought peace and regularity out of chaos.

Today 25 sampans serve 15 Hilo routes on a rotating basis so every driver can get a crack at the plushier routes. On these busier routes commuters have no longer than about 10 minutes to wait between buses.

A common belief that the unusual body used for the sampans comes from Manila or some other foreign place is incorrect. They are made in Hilo.

The same type of bus has been in operation in Hilo for at least 40 years, according to one oldtimer. One of the first to use the design is said to be the late Fukumatsu Kusumoto, who ran a jitney between the Hilo Wharf and uptown, ages ago.

One source believes Kusumoto took the body style from a picture he saw once of a bus in Mexico.

Recent years have brought about one noticeable change in the sampan buses. Once gawdy in their color schemes, they’re now more conservative in dress.

Water, Where We Live

Rainy Season at the Farm

October 20, 2010 Richard Ha 1 Comment

It feels like the seasons are starting to change. This, the rainy time of year, is when the plastic covers on our growing houses are advantageous. Our crops grow, without interruption, all the way through February. During the shorter days, the ground stays damp because there are less hours of sunlight to dry up the soil.

Finally, in this past week, the stream is starting to increase in volume. We’d been starting to worry about the spring water flow. Coming back from Kona on the Saddle road recently, we noticed the pastures are starting to turn green. It feels like the dry period is over for some parts of the island.

Here are some more pictures from the farm. This is the first kalo crop grown at Hamakua Springs and it looks really healthy. Tom Menezes is the farmer, and he really knows what he is doing. Among other things, he is a taro breeder.

This is the first ‘ulu tree growing at Hamakua Springs. It wants to grow tall and we will have to constantly prune to keep its fruit within reach. We would rather plant a variety that is shorter in stature.

We transplanted this ‘ulu at the farm a few weeks ago. Instead of fertilizer, we used the spent coconut media that we use for our hydroponic tomato crops. The tomato plant is a volunteer that germinated from the coconut media. There is one flower cluster, and the plant is very healthy even though we did not give it any conventional fertilizer.

We found this kalo growing in the river and we are growing it on the hydroponic solution we use for green onions. To my great surprise, it has thrown out runners. I wonder what Jerry Konanui will say?

Adopt-a-Class, Community, Education

Adopt-A-Class, Year 4!

September 13, 2010 Leslie Lang

It’s the start of a new school year, and we are kicking off our fourth annual Adopt-A-Class project. This is where we ask if you’ll give a little bit to help students at Keaukaha Elementary School take field trips.

Why Keaukaha Elementary? Early on, when Richard became interested in the Thirty Meter Telescope, at that time “possibly slated” for Mauna Kea, he noted that the multi-million dollar telescopes atop the mountain sacred to many Hawaiians were not benefiting the Hawaiian community at all.

He focused in on Keaukaha as one of our most Hawaiian communities. He learned that students at the elementary school there only took walking field trips to sites near their school, due to lack of funding. He and his friend Duane Kanuha decided to ask the community to help.

***
It’s been four years since then, and truly amazing things are happening at Keaukaha Elementary School these days.

For a very long time, it was near the bottom of the list in all rankings and achievement. And when the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program started, Keaukaha Elementary was one of the first in the state to be put on corrective action – after what its principal Lehua Veincent describes as “years of struggling to meet state standards.”

Under his leadership and during his first two years as principal, the school met federal standards in 2007 and 2008, and in 2008 it was one of seven schools in the state to exit restructuring status under NCLB.

Kumu Lehua has had a phenomenal impact on Keaukaha. (If you know him, you won’t be surprised to hear that he’s quick to acknowledge the importance of his “dedicated and committed faculty and staff, and the collaboration with community and business partners”).

To Kumu Lehua, though, this whole topic is about so much more than merely academics. He talks about the change in behaviors and attitudes – social aspects that are not accounted for under NCLB.

“When we see 550 people come to our Open House, as they did two weeks ago, that’s powerful,” he says. “When we have 15 kupunas that come and have our children go and sit on lauhala mats and listen to our stories of Keaukaha, that’s powerful. When we’re able to take the entire school, 350 students, and have them chant and hula in unison, that’s powerful. Those are the things that set us apart from everyone else. They are our uniqueness, our spirit.”

He said they always have to remember the school’s mission: “That our children are proud of who they are and where they come from.”

***

In 2007, we did our first Adopt-A-Class campaign, and met our goal of raising enough for every class at the school to take one field trip both semesters. The cost per field trip per class is about $600 (that’s for bus, admissions, etc.); classes sometimes find ways to use that amount to take more than one field trip per semester.

Students have taken their huaka‘i, their field trips, to Hamakua Springs Country Farms, Waipi‘o Valley, Mauna Kea, ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center and more. “Our 4th graders went up to Mo‘okini Heiau and spent a whole day there,” says Kumu Lehua, “learning the whole historical perspective of why it exists. It was a wonderful day for them.” See the links above for some past stories we’ve done about the kids’ excursions. Here are some of the students’ thank you notes.

Kumu Lehua says what’s important about the Adopt-A-Class program is taking the learning into other places where some of the skills and concepts they learn about in class are more easily visible, in a setting that has been discussed, learned about. “That’s where the application becomes a little more real,” he says. “Everything is so focused on reading and math, but not necessarily making connections between those skills and the outside.”

He says that Adopt-A-Class has brought about a lot of other opportunities for the school.

“People hear about Adopt-A-Class and they donate,” he says. “They tell other people, and people tell people, and you have a slew of people wanting to help, whether it’s with snacks, events, opportunities.”

***

These days the school philosophy centers on “Maoli Keaukaha,” the spirit of Keaukaha. Everything they do, explains Kumu Lehua, ties into one of five key points that make up the spirit and uniqueness of Keaukaha – genealogy, history, place, language and traditional practices.

“It’s the spirit of Keaukaha,” he says. “It’s what you cannot find anywhere else.”

***

Can you adopt a class? You or your company can donate $100 toward the adoption of one class (it gets grouped with other donations), or $600 supports the whole class. Your donation is tax-deductible and 100 percent goes to the school.

See the Hamakua Springs website for more details and how to donate.

Mahalo.

Geothermal, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability, Video

Video: Climbing Up The Bamboo Pole

August 23, 2010 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

Awhile back I spoke to the UH Hilo Student Association Senate leaders about geothermal energy. I warned them that exponential growth fueled by a finite resource – oil – was a serious problem for us here on the Big Island.

Along the very same lines, Lloyds of London just warned its business clients to prepare or it could be catastrophic. I wrote about Lloyds of London's warning here.

I told the student leaders that we need to know what we are going to do before a catastrophe happens. "White water coming, we need to climb up the bamboo pole and lift up our legs."

This video sums up everything I talk about on this blog.