James Hart, 29, recently returned from Honolulu, Hawaii, where about 75 Native Alaskans, some in a canoe from Yakutat, gathered with Native Hawaiians for the Ho’oilina celebration, to honor their shared history.
Hart said the celebration was about bringing people together, “to retell the stories of our Hawaiian history.” Ho’oilina means “legacy.”
Tlingit Elder and Klukwan Native Judson Brown forged a modern connection between indigenous Alaskans and Hawaiians when he gifted two spruce logs to the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) in 1990. Earlier that year the group had decided to build a canoe out of traditional materials, including two native koa trees, in an effort to revive their culture.
“For nine months, almost every weekend, teams of koa hunters fanned out through Hawaii’s forests. They walked over hundreds of square miles on Molokai, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii. They followed tips from foresters, naturalists, game wardens and hunters. Once they discovered an extremely large and promising tree but it was rotten. It had probably died fifty years earlier,” wrote Sam Low in the book “Hawaiki Rising,” quoted in the Hokulea Archive.
“Because of clear cutting and cattle farming, the wood they needed was gone,” said Hart.
Nainoa Thompson, legendary navigator from the PVS, went to Juneau to request wood from Brown. Brown was then chairman of the Sealaska Foundation, an offshoot of the Sealaska Native corporation, which managed huge swaths of forest won by Natives in a landmark land claims case. Thompson is quoted in the Hokulea Archive describing Brown: “Judson was a large man. He had a deep strong voice and a kind smile. He was quiet but welcoming. His eyes had seen a lot.” Brown ultimately agreed to gift two Sitka spruce logs.
“Judson also clearly saw a bridge being constructed between his people and ours. He saw it from the very beginning,” Thompson said.
Hart heard Thompson retelling these stories in Honolulu. “I was trying to take notes but I was also trying to listen to Nainoa,” said Hart.
Brown gifted logs more than 400 years old and 200 feet tall. The PVS carved a massive, double-hulled voyaging canoe called Hawai’iloa. In February 1995, Hawai’iloa joined two other voyaging canoes to sail from Hawaii to Tahiti using traditional way-finding (non-instrument navigation) techniques. “It was the first time in a thousand years that a fleet of Polynesian canoes had sailed together over an ancient voyaging route,” according to the Hokulea Archive.
After Judson Brown died, two totem poles were carved, and one was brought to the Bishop Museum in Hawaii.
“The (Ho’oilina) conference was to create a linkage between the Pacific Ocean,” Hart said, sitting under a picture of Brown at the Chilkoot Indian Association, with Low’s book in front of him. Hart spoke about the cultural and historical similarities between Native communities in Alaska and Hawaii. “It was emotional how beautiful their culture was. Their space, their singing, the energy they all held,” he said. “In a way it felt familiar.”
Hart identified with the desire to revive culture through traditional canoe building. “That’s really where we get our power,” he said. “Traditional food, stories, art—the canoe brings all those things together.” Hart has taken part in constructing and carving four canoes. He spent 10 months apprenticing with master carver Wayne Price in Hoonah, where he built a canoe from start to finish. “A canoe brings hope to the Hawaiian people and a canoe brings hope to me,” said Hart.
The Native Alaskans and Hawaiians who gathered in Honolulu remain connected. In 2021, the voyaging canoe Hokule’a will embark on a journey circumnavigating the Pacific, launching from Alaska. Hart said he’d love to participate.