Since 2002, the (PVS) and Honolulu Community College’s (METC) have been working together to develop a learning center that combines the voyaging and cultural expertise of PVS and the educational background of the University of �鶹��ý into a new, experience-driven format of training for future students.

The partnership actually saved the venerable . After returning to Oʻahu from a historic trip to Tahiti in 1976, ��ō��ū����ʻ�� had no permanent home and bounced around for a few years. PVS was looking for new berthing, and Honolulu CC stepped up. The vision was not only a home for ��ō��ū����ʻ��, but a venue for integrating traditional and cultural skills and values with a community based educational institution.

“We are just so fortunate, so lucky, that there was a Marine Education Training Center and that there was a place to finally take care of ��ō��ū����ʻ��,” says PVS President Nainoa Thompson. “[The METC] was a place that we could conduct the kinds of education that are tied to our values and contribute to the strengthening of Hawaiian culture.”

Restoring ��ō��ū����ʻ��

Honolulu CC would step up again in 2010, when tens of thousands of volunteer hours were donated at METC to repair and refurbish ��ō��ū����ʻ�� in preparation for the . The college is continuing its commitment to further develop navigation curriculum by offering . Participants will learn about the history of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, parts of a canoe, seamanship and navigation basics.

The 10-campus UH System has been an educational partner in the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, with hundreds of students, faculty and staff participating in multiple ways.

Thompson often cites the late astronaut Lacy Veach when explaining the purpose of the worldwide voyage. Veach once said, “When we figure out how to live well on our islands, we will have the most important gift we can give to the earth, and that is hope.”

Thompson says, “We are going to work towards that dream, and the key is the university. It’s the University of �鶹��ý helping us shine the way.”

—By Kelli Trifonovitch

If he had known what a complex undertaking it would be, Nainoa Thompson says now, he might not have asked to create a digital library of documents related to the .

But the man whose name is synonymous with rescuing traditional voyaging from the brink of extinction celebrated the public launch February 8 of , a digital archive created through a partnership of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Honolulu Community College and the Hawaiian Digital Library .

“The stuff you folks have done is on the level of a miracle,” Thompson told the project staff and a supporting crew of contributors.

Creating an archive

It took six years and review and research and the digitizing and organizing of 65,000 documents to create the extensive record of the society and the voyages of ��ō��ū����ʻ��. The project began with the society’s archive at Kamehameha Schools, where materials were preserved but not readily available for scholarly or public use, Thompson said. The effort expanded to include additional materials from crew members and sources.

“Voyaging by the ancient Polynesians was one of the most remarkable navigation feats in the world and we don’t know anything about it,” Thompson said. “This archive is a place to maintain the kuleana so we do not forget again.”

Honolulu Community College Chancellor Michael Rota also recognized the work of important, if more recent, predecessors. State leadership 30- to 40-years ago resulted in legislation that set aside funds for Hawaiian-serving institutions that support Hawaiian language, culture and education, he said. It was former Chancellor Ramsey Pedersen who agreed to use those federal Title III funds to support the project.

“The unique assets of our and the unique undertaking of the Polynesian Voyaging Society have been major benefits to Honolulu Community College and to our place in the community,” Rota said.

“What we’re sharing is one of the most significant cultural events in Hawaiian history in the last 100 years,” he added, touching on the importance placed on the Hawaiian cultural resurgence by his colleagues in the Pacific.

Forging a partnership

The Polynesian Voyaging Society came to the college’s marine center as a place to tie up ��ō��ū����ʻ��, Thompson observed. But the partnership between the institutions since 2003 has created opportunities. “There are educational programs we could create together that we couldn’t create apart.”

Training for the society’s World Wide Voyage started at the center, he added. The research to support a sailing plan that addressed weather systems around the globe, safety issues such as piracy and political unrest and accompanying educational programs took place within the center’s walls.

Traditional knowledge has to be coupled with technology, he said, describing solar powered engines that will be installed on the canoe that will be the new child of ��ō��ū����ʻ��.

“The other canoe we launch today”—a website that will carry thousands, perhaps millions of people on voyages. “It is an enormous service to those who have gone before us and those generations not yet born who want to grow up believing their homeland is a place to believe in and a place that is sacred.”

About the archive

A boon to academics, educators and students alike, the site allows users to search by year, individual, voyage, document title or topic.

Project coordinator Jonathan Wong calls it “one of the coolest things I ever did.”

Visit the .

Read more about Thompson’s vision for in Mālamalama

Support Honolulu Community College through the or the .