Worldwide voyage of traditional canoes worth celebrating

Dozens of novelists and philosophers have reflected on the nature of voyaging, about the importance of the travels themselves apart from the destination.

Author Ursula K. Le Guin once wrote: "It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."

There are few events that illustrate this idea more clearly than the voyages of the Hokule’a and her sister vessels over the four-decade history of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

The journeys resume with an international series, departing from Honolulu on Saturday and then from Hilo in the next few weeks.

The significance of the first voyage of the double-hulled canoe in 1976 is that it coincided with the start of the Hawaiian cultural renaissance. Hokule’a, known as Arcturus in the west, is prominent among the stars followed by Hawaiian navigators. The renewed dedication to the art and science of navigation by the stars continues to foster a deeper understanding of the islands’ host culture among succeeding generations.

This again is what confronts the crews about to embark on the Hokule’a’s most challenging voyages to date. New apprentice navigators merge their 21st-century education with ancient knowledge; they’ll need both assets to manage the sails being planned over the next 36 months.

More than 50,000 miles will be traversed in all, involving a workforce exceeding 300 sailors on about 25 voyage legs. The Hokule’a and its escort canoe, the Hikianalia (named for a companion star to Hokule’a), will be testing the capacity of the crews and the methodology, crossing the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.

Those who followed the failed efforts to locate the lost Malaysian Airlines craft in the Indian Ocean saw the rough seas and can imagine why that leg of the journey, set for summer through fall 2015, is expected to be the most hazardous.

The Polynesian Voyaging Society is a nonprofit research and educational corporation that has long enjoyed the support of federal grants. It came under fire for precisely that reason during the Congressional crackdown against earmarks a few years ago, held up as an example of excessive government spending.

The roster of winners and losers in the tussle for federal funds is always a subject of debate — competition for public funds has been fierce since the recession. But the mission of the society itself was unfairly dismissed by some as inconsequential.

It is not. The society has forged numerous partnerships with other organizations in pursuit of its educational goals — the Hawaiian language immersion program ‘Aha Punana Leo, various public charter schools, the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai’i and, beyond Hawaii, the voyaging societies of the Cook and Fiji islands.

Polynesian sailing technique was rescued from oblivion because the knowledge of Pacific voyaging was shared by a Micronesian navigator, Pius Mau Piailug, decades before his death in 2010. Mastery of the practice is bound up with an understanding of sustainability principles — making the most of provisions on a long journey — that apply to Hawaii as a whole.

The reclamation of these practices from almost certain extinction is the legacy of the Hokule’a voyages, an achievement worth celebrating. Watching them perpetuated in the "Sail of the Century" over the next three years ought to buoy hopes for the continued health of Hawaiian tradition.