Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Kānemilohaʻi

 July 12, 2003 was an extraordinary day in my life; the experiences that day helped me as Chair of Board of the Land and Natural Resources make the recommendation to the rest of the BLNR (and we then voted unanimously) to impose the most stringent measures to assure protection of the place.
That action created Refuge rules “To establish a marine refuge in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the long-term conservation and protection of the unique coral reef ecosystems and the related marine resources and species, to ensure their conservation and natural character for present and future generations.“  Fishing and other extraction is prohibited.
Let’s step back.
Kānemilohaʻi is the first atoll to the northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands; it’s also the midpoint of the Hawaiian Islands archipelago and the largest coral reef area in Hawai‘i.
This low, flat area is where Pele is said to have left one of her older brothers, Kānemilohaʻi, as a guardian during her first journey to Hawai‘i from Kahiki (Tahiti.) Pele continued down the archipelago until finally settling in Kīlauea, Hawai‘i Island, where she is said to reside today.  (Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument)
It is located 550-miles northwest of Honolulu.  The day I went there, it took 3 ½ hours to fly there, we were on the ground for 3 ½ hours, with the same 3 ½ hour return flight (we left at dark and arrived back at dark.)
We were unexpectedly greeted by Jean-Michel Cousteau; he was on the island during his filming of “Voyage to Kure.”  (I brought snorkel gear, but passed on that to take advantage of having extra time to speak with Jean-Michel.)
The crescent-shaped atoll of small islands is 18-miles in diameter.  The lagoon is unusual in that it contains two exposed volcanic pinnacles representing the last remainders of the high island from which the atoll was derived.
The largest pinnacle, La Perouse Pinnacle (rising vertically about 120-feet above sea level, 7-miles south of Tern Island and is named after Jean Francois de Galaup, Compte de La Pérouse who sailed there in 1786) is a rock outcrop in the center of the atoll.  It is reportedly the oldest and most remote volcanic rock in the Hawaiian chain.
Making up the rest of the atoll are nine low, sandy islets.  The sand islets are small, shift position, and disappear and reappear.  The “main” island is referred to today as Tern Island.  Terns are birds … there are a lot of terns on Tern Island.
The islands first played a part in World War II when they were included in Japanese plans for refueling seaplanes from submarines in the sheltered waters of the atoll.
Such a refueling was successfully carried out in 1942 by two Imperial Japanese Navy flying boats that were refueled by a submarine. The seaplanes then mounted a bombing raid on Pearl Harbor, although they were thwarted from hitting their targets by inclement weather.
Then, in 1942, the 5th Seabee Battalion arrived on Tern Island to begin construction of a US airfield. The island was only a few hundred feet long, yet was expanded by dredged coral to create a 3,100-foot by 275-foot runway and a ramp area sufficient for 24-single engine aircraft (expanding the Island’s area to 27-acres, of which 20 were taken up by the airfield.)  (Tern Island resembles an aircraft carrier.)
A station was commissioned in 1943 as an auxiliary of Pearl Harbor and also served as an emergency landing strip and refueling stop for fighter squadrons transiting between Honolulu and Midway.  Quonset Huts were erected to serve as housing; the typical complement was 118-men, who rotated from Pearl Harbor on a three month tour.
In February 1949, the Navy abandoned the airstrip and facilities to the Territory of Hawaiʻi.  In January 1952, the Coast Guard to build a LORAN navigation beacon tower on Tern Island, along with a 20-man support facility.  (LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) is a radio navigation system enabling ships and aircraft to determine their position and speed.)  The Coast Guard installation continued until 1979.
Tern Island also played an interesting role during the early days of space flight. The Pacific Missile Range had a portable tracking station located at one end of the island that helped track the US Discoverer spacecraft, as well as the Soviet Union’s space efforts, including their first manned mission (April 12. 1961.)
When the tracking installation obtained data from a particularly important track, the data tapes would be put in a fiberglass canister, attached by a nylon rope to a grappling hook at the top of a pole erected on the runway. This would be snagged by a passing C-130 in mid-air above the runway.
In recent years, Tern Island became part of the Hawaiian & Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex.  A ranger station occupies the former Coast Guard buildings and is occupied by small groups of researchers.  The runway continues to be used for occasional personnel transfer & supply flights.
These islets provide important habitat for the world’s largest breeding colony of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal and also provide nesting sites for 90-percent of the threatened green turtle population breeding in the Hawaiian Archipelago.
On a tour around Tern Island we saw monk seals and turtles resting on the sandy shore, as well markings in the sand of a turtle who laid her eggs the night before.
When asked what I thought after my visit there, I simply say, “This place is different.”
Puzzled, many expect to hear “fantastic,” “pristine” and the range of other expressions that note the abundance and diversity of resources there.  Compared to what we see in the main Hawaiian Islands, Tern and the other islands, reefs and atolls to the northwest are “different.”
In helping people understand what I mean, I have referred to my recommendation to impose stringent protective measures and prohibit extraction as the responsibility we share to provide future generations a chance to see what it looks like in a place in the world where you don’t take something.
The BLNR’s action started a process where several others followed with similar stringent protective measures.
Kānemilohaʻi is now part of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a State and Federal (State of Hawaiʻi, Department of the Interior’s US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) co-managed marine conservation area.  The monument encompasses nearly 140,000-square miles of the Pacific Ocean – an area larger than all the country’s national parks combined.
On July 30, 2010, Papahānaumokuākea was inscribed as a mixed (natural and cultural) World Heritage Site by the delegates to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO.) It is the first mixed UNESCO World Heritage Site in the United States and the second World Heritage Site in Hawaiʻi (Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park was inscribed in 1987.)
Oh, the modern name for Kānemilohaʻi?
On November 6, 1786, French explorer La Pérouse, aboard his frigate, the Broussole, accompanied by the Astrolabe, was sailing westward from Monterey to Macao.  In the wee morning hours, men on both ships sighted breakers directly ahead; both boats were immediately brought about and avoided the breakers.
At daybreak, they sighted the pinnacle and later explored the southeastern half of the atoll.  Before leaving, he named his new discovery Basse des Fregates Frangaises, or Shoal of the French Frigates.  In July 1954, the US Board of Geographic Names adopted the name, French Frigate Shoals. (Amerson)  (Lots of information from Management Plan, hawaii-gov and Abandoned Airfields)
The image shows some of the reefs and islands of Kānemilohaʻi (French Frigate Shoals.)  In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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First Foreigners to Find Hawaiʻi

Until recently, it was generally thought that initial Polynesian discovery of Hawai‘i happened around AD 300–750.

However, with significant advances in radiocarbon dating and the targeted re-dating of key Eastern Polynesian and Hawaiian sites has strongly supported and suggested that initial Polynesian discovery and colonization of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200.  (Kirch)

Later, in the dawn hours of January 18, 1778, on his third expedition, British explorer Captain James Cook on the HMS Resolution and Captain Charles Clerke of the HMS Discovery first sighted what Cook named the Sandwich Islands (that were later named the Hawaiian Islands.)

Cook continued to sail along the coast searching for a suitable anchorage.  His two ships remained offshore, but a few Hawaiians were allowed to come on board on the morning of January 20, before Cook continued on in search of a safe harbor.

On the afternoon of January 20, 1778, Cook anchored his ships near the mouth of the Waimea River on Kauaʻi’s southwestern shore.  After a couple of weeks, there, they headed to the west coast of North America.

Hawaiian lives changed with sudden and lasting impact, when western contact changed the course of history for Hawai‘i.

But, was Cook the first foreigner to find Hawaiʻi?

“Old Spanish charts and a 1613 AD Dutch globe suggest that explorers from Spain had sighted Hawaiʻi long before Captain Cook.  When Cook arrived in 1778, galleons laden with silver from the mines of Mexico and South America had been passing south of Hawaiʻi for two centuries on annual round trip voyages of 17,000 miles between Acapulco and Manila.”  (Kane)

“It seems to be almost certain that one Juan Gaetano, a Spanish navigator, saw Hawaii in 1555 AD. A group of islands, the largest of which was called La Mesa, was laid down in the old Spanish charts in the same latitude as the Hawaiian Islands, but 10 degrees too far east.”  (Hawaiʻi Department of Foreign Affairs, 1896)

There are undoubted proof of finding the Hawaiian Islands by the Spaniard, Juan Gaetano. This is the first known record of the islands among the civilized nations. There are evident references to this group in the legends of the Polynesians in other Pacific islands.  (Westervelt 1923)

La Perouse noted, when he briefly visited the Islands (1786,) “In the charts, at the foot of this archipelago, might be written: ‘Sandwich Islands, surveyed in 1778 by Captain Cook, who named them, anciently discovered by the Spanish navigators.’”  (La Perouse, Fornander)

“By all the documents that have been examined, it is demonstrated that the discovery dates from the year 1555 and that the discoverer was Juan Gaetano or Gaytan. The principal proof is an old manuscript chart, registered in these archives as anonymous, and in which the Sandwich Islands are laid down under that name, but which also contains a note declaring that he called them Islas de Mesa”.  (Spanish Colonial Office letter to the Governor of the Philippines, The Friend May 1927)

“It is true that no document has been found in which Gaytan himself certifies to this fact, but there exist data which collectively form a series of proofs sufficient for believing it to be so. The principal one is an old manuscript chart … in which the Sandwich Islands are laid down under that name…” (The Friend May 1927)

“(H)e called them “Islas de Mesa” (Table Islands.) There are besides, other islands, situated in the same latitude, but 10° further east, and respectively named “La Mesa” (the table), “La Desgraciado” (the unfortunate), “Olloa,” and “Los Monges” (the Monks.)”

Gaetano passed through the northern part of the Pacific and found large islands which he marked upon a chart as “Los Majos.” The great mountains upon these islands did not rise in sharp peaks, but spread out like a high tableland in the clouds, hence he also called the islands “Isles de Mesa,” the Mesa Islands or the Table Lands. One of the islands was named “The Unfortunate.” Three other smaller islands were called “The Monks.”  (Westervelt 1923)

In 1743, English captain George Anson set sail for the Pacific to attack Spanish galleons (English and Spain were at war at the time.)  Overcoming the ‘Nuestra Senora de Covadonga,’ he found a “chart of all the ocean between the Philippines and the coasts of Mexico.”  A cluster of islands were noted in mid-ocean; the island La Mesa is on the same latitude of the Island of Hawaiʻi and its southern contour resembles the southern coastline of Hawaiʻi; however, they are noted east of their actual location.  (Kane)

Until 1744 and the development of the chronometer, determining longitude was an historic problem for navigators.  Longitude (East-West) was estimated by distances a ship covered within various periods of time, estimated by the ship’s speed during each period.  (Kane)

Ship speed was measured with a block of wood attached to a line with knots tied at intervals.  The ‘log’ was cast from the sterns and the number of ‘knots’ run out during a certain time interval enabled the navigator to calculate his speed.  However, this method doesn’t address the west-bound ocean current that would effectively place a position east of its true position.  (Kane)

Fortunately, however, the Spanish made no use of this find, thus permitting the Hawaiians to escape the sad fate of the natives of the Ladrones and Carolines under Spanish dominion.  (White 1898)

Juan Gaetano may not have been the first Spaniard, here.  Stories suggest an earlier arrival of shipwrecked Spaniards at Keʻei, Kona Moku (district,) Island of Hawaiʻi.

There is fairly complete evidence that a Spanish vessel was driven ashore on the island of Hawaii in 1527, it being one of a squadron of three which sailed from the Mexican coast for the East Indies.  (White 1898)

“A well known Hawaiian tradition relates that in the reign of Keliiokaloa, son of Umi, a foreign vessel was wrecked at Keei, South Kona, Hawaii. According to the tradition, only the captain and his sister reached the shore in safety. From their kneeling on the beach and remaining a long time in that posture, the place was called Kulou (to stoop, to bow,) as it is unto this day.”  (Alexander 1892)

“The natives received them kindly and placed food before them. These strangers intermarried with the Hawaiians, and were the progenitors of certain well known families of chiefs, as for instance, that of Kaikioewa, former Governor of Kauai.“  (Alexander 1892)

Jarves expanded on the story, “In the reign of Kealiiokaloa, son of Umi, thirteen generations of kings before Cook’s arrival, which, according to the previous calculation, would bring it near the year 1620, a vessel, called by the natives Konaliloha, arrived at Pale, Keei, on the south side of Kealakeakua bay, Hawaii.”

“Here, by some accident, she was drawn into the surf, and totally wrecked; the captain, Kukanaloa, and a white woman, said to be his sister, were the only persons who reached the land. As soon as they trod upon the beach, either from fear of the inhabitants, or to return thanks for their safety, they prostrated themselves, and remained in that position for a long time. The spot where this took place, is known at the present day, by the appellation of Kulou, to bow down. The shipwrecked strangers were hospitably received, invited to the dwellings of the natives, and food placed before them.”  (Jarves 1843)

The image shows a chart noting the correct location of the Islands and the Table Islands suggested in the Spanish Chart (this was used by La Perouse, who looked for, but did not find the Table Islands.).  In addition, I have included other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Kīpahulu

The south-eastern section of the island of Maui, comprising the districts of Hāna, Kīpahulu, Kaupo and Kahikinui, was at one time a Royal Center and central point of kingly and priestly power.

This section of the island was prominent in the reign of Kekaulike, and has Maui’s largest heiau (Piʻilanihale Heiau – near Hāna.)  Others also seated their power here.

Long before the first Europeans arrived on Maui, Kīpahulu was prized by the Hawaiian aliʻi for its fertile land and abundant ocean.

The first written description of Kīpahulu was made by La Pérouse in 1786 while sailing along the southeast coast of Maui in search of a place to drop anchor:

“I coasted along its shore at a distance of a league (three miles) …. The aspect of the island of Mowee was delightful.  We beheld water falling in cascades from the mountains,  and running in streams to the sea,  after having watered the habitations of the natives,  which  are  so numerous  that a  space of  three or four leagues (9 – 12 miles, about the distance from Hāna to Kaupō) may be  taken for  a single village.” (Bushnell)

“But all the huts are on the seacoast, and the mountains  are so near, that the habitable  part of the island appeared to be less than half a league in depth.  The trees which crowned the mountains,  and the verdure of the banana plants that surrounded the habitations, produced  inexpressible  charms to our senses; but the sea beat upon the coast with the utmost  violence, and kept  us in the situation of  Tantalus,  desiring and devouring with our eyes what  it was  impossible for us to  attain … After passing Kaupō no more waterfalls are seen, and villages are fewer.” (Bushnell)

With the development of the whaling industry on the island in 1880s Kīpahulu population started to decline as people moved to main whaling ports, such as Lāhainā.

In the early-1900s, one of the regular ports of call for the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company was Kīpahulu. Steamships provided passenger service around Maui and between the islands.

Kīpahulu Landing also provided a way for growers and ranchers to ship their goods to markets. Today the land where Kīpahulu Landing existed is private but protected with a conservation easement, overseen by the Maui Coastal Land Trust (now part of the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust.)

A famous Kīpahulu resident was Charles Lindbergh.  He was the first to make a solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.  Other pilots had crossed the Atlantic before him; but Lindbergh was the first person to do it alone nonstop.

“Early in the morning on May 20, 1927 Charles Lindbergh took off in The Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field near New York City. Flying northeast along the coast, he was sighted later in the day flying over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. From St. Johns, Newfoundland, he headed out over the Atlantic, using only a magnetic compass, his airspeed indicator, and luck to navigate toward Ireland.”  (New York Times, May 21, 1927)

“On the evening of May 21, he crossed the coast of France, followed the Seine River to Paris and touched down at Le Bourget Field at 10:22 pm. … A frenzied crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered at Le Bourget Field to greet him. ”  (New York Times, May 21, 1927)

Lindbergh was introduced to Maui by his friend Sam Pryor, a Pan American Vice President and supporter of his flight across the Atlantic.  Having first visited Pryor’s home near Hana, Lindberg later acquired land next to him and built his house.

Lindbergh died of cancer on Aug. 26, 1974, in his home on Maui.  He was buried on the grounds of the Palapala Hoʻomau Church.  (Pryor died in 1985 and is buried there, too – as well as Sam’s six gibbons.)

Kīpahulu’s Palapala Hoʻomau Church started construction in 1857 and was completed in 1862; it was restored in 1965 (with a lot of help from Lindberg and Pryor.)

In January 2012, the Palapala Hoʻomau Preservation Society was created to care for the Church.  For many years, an endowment administered by the Hawai‘i Conference Foundation, set up by the Lindbergh and Pryor families, provided funds for maintenance and upkeep of the property.  (hcucc)

In recent years, the need for restoration work on the church has gone beyond what the endowment fund can provide.  Although there is no regular worshipping community at Palapala Hoʻomau, the historical significance of the church and graveyard, as well as the number of visitors who come to the property each year, led the Hawai‘i Conference Foundation to find a solution.  (hcucc)

Mike Love of the Beach Boys later bought the Lindberg home, a 5-acre estate, down a twisting, scenic road a few miles from Hāna.  Love also purchased the Pryor’s 14-acre adjacent site and house.  (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1989)

The image shows the Palapala Hoʻomau Church (hcucc.)   In addition, I have added other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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