Last year, Hui Wa‘a O Wakinikona, or Outrigger Canoe Club of Washington, added a member to their family: a newly-purchased canoe. It was a happy occasion for the Lake Union-based club, and it presented a new challenge: What to name the canoe?
“The guys who paddle all had their ideas of what’s a good name,” said Stan Dahlin, the poʻo waʻa or head teacher, of the club. “And then you have someone who blesses the canoe, called a kumu hula (or teacher), and the kumu hula has to feel comfortable giving the name to this canoe.”
After a lengthy process of fundraising, purchasing, delivery, and approval by the heads of the community, the canoe found its new name: Mohala.
“Mohala means blossoming, ripe to maturity, and is tied to the water,” Dahlin said. “Water is what Seattle is all about.”
What makes Hui Wa‘a O Wakinikona so special to community members is how Dahlin and others keep Hawaiian traditions and values alive. In doing so, they bring a piece of home to the cold waters of the Seattle area.
Hui Waʻa O Wakinikona did not begin as an outrigger canoe club, but started as the Wakinikona Hawaiian Club, established in 1963. The club served as a place for camaraderie for the Hawaiian diaspora who moved out of Hawaiʻi. They would support a variety of cultural activities for keiki, or kids, such as hula, choir groups, making lei, and food.
“At some point in time, a lot of the kids born here didn’t have any roots in Hawaiʻi,” Dahlin said. “They said, we have to do something more.”
And so, the larger community club turned into an outrigger canoe club in 1997. Outrigger canoe is a staple of Hawaiian culture. It is traditionally made from sacred koa wood and plant fibers, designed to withstand large ocean currents. Each canoe holds six paddlers. It has now become a multigenerational, international, versatile sport practiced worldwide.
Michael Spencer, Dean of the School of Social Work at UW, specializes in health and wellness practices for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. He believes a space like Hui Waʻa O Wakinikona is important for young people.
Spencer is working on a study of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander disparities in Washington state, and has found themes transferable to the cultural value of the outrigger canoe. “When you only read western history, western culture, western language you become culturally devoid,” Spencer said. “You feel as if your language and your culture doesn’t matter.”
Members of Hui Waʻa O Wakinikona understand the responsibility to preserve the values they carry deeply.
“If we decide today that we don’t want to [paddle], then it dies with us,” Benjamin Kaʻimipono Oclaray, a paddler, said. “And all those thousands of years of effort to sail the ocean gets lost within a generation.”
The club also provides a welcoming environment for adults who have moved from the Hawaiian islands for a variety of reasons.
Jamie Stroble-Pauelua, who joined Hui Wa‘a O Wakinikona in 2006, did so because she grew up paddling in O‘ahu and was looking for a piece of home.
“I grew up with the sense of aloha,” Stroble-Pauelua said. “You are always looking out for your neighbors, looking out for your family. And it felt like it wasn’t there.”
Now, she’s the club’s wahine (women’s) coach.
Others had never paddled before moving to the mainland, and gave it a chance to find community and connect with their roots. Keola Rodrigues moved to the mainland in 2011 after being born and raised in O‘ahu. He joined Hui Wa’a O Wakinikona to reconnect with his culture as well as be more health conscious. The club was a way to “kill two birds with one stone,” Rodrigues said.
“As soon as I hopped in the canoe, they couldn’t get me out,” Rodrigues said.
Rodrigues, Stroble-Pauelua, and Oclaray all share the same values that preserving and keeping Hawaiian traditions alive is imperative for future generations. All cite their leadership, specifically poʻo waʻa Dahlins, in the leading force to keeping these traditions alive.
Dane Leslie P. Rawlins, president of the parent club to the outrigger canoe club, Wakinikona Hawaiian Club, speaks to this as well. He notes how Dahlin always makes sure it is not just about paddling but that paddlers also understand the morals, sayings, and values.
“One value is called Mālama ,” Dahlin said. “Mālama is to care for, take care of.” This includes caring for the land and waters, Dahlin said.
These local spaces for cultivating Hawaiian culture would not exist without the relationships with the Native people of Washington. In fact, the original leadership of Hui Wa’a O Wakinikona reached out to the Indigenous peoples here in Seattle before they began paddling, according to Dahlin. They responded by lending the club their first canoes so that they could paddle.
Rawlins also said they found they shared many values with the Native American nations they contacted, leading to a tight-knit relationship based on mutual understanding over land values.
“We participated in a race [in Bellingham], and then afterwards celebrated with them,” Rawlins said. “We had smoked salmon, corn on the cob, and all these delicious foods that they had to offer.”
Respect for the lands, specifically for water, is key for members of the club. Paddler Taylor Paul Anuhea Ahana sometimes feels a lack of respect from others who share the water, as the paddlers find themselves picking up trash and fighting off remarks about their paddling as they practice. He asserts there “needs to be a level of respect shown to the waters here.”
Jessy Marie Hardy, also a paddler, echoes this sentiment, saying some people seem to believe they have “ownership” over the waters.
“No, you don’t own this,” Ahana said. “None of us own this, and that’s why there needs to be this level of respect shown to the waters here.”
Hui Wa’a O Wakinikona is open to everyone. Hardy grew up paddling in Guam and was exposed to canoeing in high school, but she feels at home among the Native Hawaiian values, for they can reflect her own, growing up in the Pacific.
“There’s probably an equal part of people that have Hawaiian ancestry and people that don’t,” Rawlins said. “Everyone really enjoys Hawaiian culture.”
The connection to Hawaiian culture in Seattle extends farther than Hui Wa‘a O Wakinikona. There are about 20 other outrigger canoe clubs in the Pacific Northwest,, according to Dahlin and Rawlins, all sharing a sense of camaraderie that extends beyond competition. At the end of the day, what the clubs care about most is getting to paddle.
“We help each other,” Rawlins said. “We do compete, but the most important thing is that we all get along.”
Perhaps the most unifying moment for Hui Wa‘a O Wakinikona was the passage of the Hōkūleʻa in 2023.
The Hōkūleʻa is a modern-day Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe launched by the Polynesian Voyaging Society that travels the Pacific to restore, rediscover, and reconnect the relationship between island and sea, at a time where cultural extinction was a threat felt for many Hawaiians. The Hōkūleʻa has been traveling since 1976.
The Hōkūleʻa stopping in the Seattle shores was a multicultural event and a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many members.
“They carry around these stones or pōhaku from different parts of the Pacific,” Oclaray said. “But one of the rocks, one of the pōhaku, was from my hometown…I didn’t have any intention of seeing the Hōkūleʻa and here I am standing on the Hōkūleʻa looking at a rock that’s from my hometown.”
Events like these highlight the overarching mission of the Hui Wa’a O Wakinikona, and the existence of Wakinikona Hawaiian Club as a whole. Rawlins notes how becoming a haumana (student) of the canoe club is like finding family.
“We don’t miss home as much,” Rawlins said. “You’re doing things here that you would do back in Hawai‘i, just a little colder.”
