Festival of the Canoes

And now for something completely different, the annual Festival of the Canoes in Lahaina. Each year for the past 12 or so, master canoe builders from all over the Pacific have come to Lahaina to "compete" in the building of canoes in traditional styles. They use modern tools, and non-traditional wood, but they produce sometimes lovely canoes, using the opportunity not only to pass long their skills to the next generation, but also to show the rest of us how it is done. In traditional societies, subsistence economies meant that the whole community had to set aside enough food to feed the canoe builders and themselves for however long it took to build the canoe -- sometimes a year. So since it was not an everyday event, or even an every year event, it meant that canoe-building skills were not often passed on. And now that the canoes themselves are not necessary to everyday life, it is even less often that builders have the time and materials to practice their craft.

Here are a few views of this year's festival.