Richard and I were talking about why the proliferation of old-style canoes and traditional voyaging techniques in recent decades is so significant. Besides just being interesting and kind of neat, it’s significant.

Yes, the canoes are historical remnants of the past, but they are also of the present, and they are taking us voyaging into the future. These days they carry solar panels, and other modern gear. (You know the ancestors would have used those technologies in a second if they’d had them.) They are literally transporting us into the future, and what we learn from them will help our future generations.

It’s neat how this ancient way is viable again. More than viable – actually showing us the way. It’s all about taking the knowledge and wisdom of the past and using it in the present to make a stronger future. It’s exactly what the old Polynesians did when they sailed out into the Pacific to find new land.

The canoes, the navigational knowledge, the voyaging – it’s all a gift from our ancestors to our descendants.