Straight on Til Friday
Chasing history by outrigger canoe: a landlubber's log
Jason Hilford
Onboard photography by Michael Gilbert
Wildlife photography by David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton
The canoe weaves in and out, up and over the sun-speckled crests,
the paddles in constant, harmonious motion, every stroke a chanted phrase,
a story older and more powerful than recorded history.
With each minute, each hour, we stay our northwest course,
the primeval narrative unfolds toward an objective, an ending,
simultaneously geographical and intangible. . . . Northwest.
In the waters of Na Mokupuni na Kupuna, we are time traveling,
following the path of the ancients.
Sparks fly as First Mate Paka Cunningham welds a metal cleat into place on the stern of the American Islander, docked in Kaua‘i’s Nawiliwili Harbor. The deck is abuzz with activity in the waning sunlight as Captain Matt Tongg’s crew and the soon-to-be passengers on this 97-foot tug prepare for the open seas. Canoe paddles and other supplies are transferred from dock to deck; five-gallon water bottles are passed, bucket-brigade style, down the hatch into dry storage. It occurs to me that the Hawaiian language uses the same word for “boat” and “island”: moku—for the next 10 days, the American Islander will be our moku, our floating island, as we travel through the most isolated chain of islands in the world.
Most people are unaware of the chain of seamounts, atolls, and islets stretching 1,200 miles beyond Kaua‘i, occupying about two-thirds of Hawai‘i’s area (but only one-tenth of one percent of its total land mass), larger in area than all of our national parks combined. Known communally as the Northwest Hawaiian Islands (in Hawaiian, Na Mokupuni na Kupuna, or the Islands of the Ancestors), these tiny rocks and sand banks barely piercing the surface, along with the surrounding waters, are home to 7,000 marine species and 14 million birds (including the Laysan duck, one of the world's rarest ducks, include 70 percent of the nation’s coral reefs, and serve as the nesting ground for 90 percent of the state’s green sea turtles. So remote that it occupies a different time zone from the rest of the state, this corner of the Pacific received Federal recognition last summer as the nation’s first marine national monument, and the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Voyaging Society and support crew are honored to be among the area’s first visitors since it gained monument status.
Alongside Paka sit both an inflatable rubber zodiac with a small outboard motor and the bright yellow hull of Ke Alaka‘i o Ko‘u Mau Kupuna, a 40-foot Hawaiian outrigger canoe. In a few days, the 15 men and one woman representing the society will paddle the 461 miles between Necker (Hawaiian name: Mokumanamana) and Laysan (Kauo) Islands. The society is a nonprofit organization forged in the vision of one man, Maui’s Kimokeo Kapahulehua,
and his dream to connect all of the Hawaiian Islands, from Hawai‘i Island to Kure Atoll, by outrigger canoe. A group of paddlers who share his vision and form the core of the society—Jamie Woodburn, Chris Luedi, Matt Muirhead, Kendall Struxness, and Pepe Trask—has helped Kimokeo realize that dream thus far, starting with a 2003 journey from Hawai‘i Island to Maui. (All but Trask are along on this journey to Laysan.) This penultimate leg (the ultimate being next year’s trip to Kure) will be the longest yet, the longest paddle-canoe voyage in modern history, in fact, and the society has dedicated it to creating awareness for the monument and its preservation. As the lone journalist onboard, I am charged with the seemingly impossible assignment of documenting this epic voyage.
