GAUALOFA & The Waka Odyssey at New Zealand Festival 2018
Our Vaka Culture is alive and well on the sea's of Aotearoa! This evening a first fleet of four of our extraordinary Pasifika vakas sail into Wellington harbour to open the New Zealand Festival 2018. Inspired by the arrival in Aotearoa of great navigator and explorer Kupe, the 'Waka Odyssey' event shines a spotlight on all the best of our ancient maritime culture and craft.
In a landmark celebration of our shared voyaging history a A Waka Odyssey kicks off tonight with this spectacular fleet of waka arriving at Wellington's waterfront. If you live in Wellington, head down to the Wellington Harbour where you can be part of the welcome of the fleet of waka hourua (traditional double-hulled sailing canoes) and their crew. It will be a moving finale to the waka crews months-long journey from Samoa, the Cook Islands and around New Zealand.
The only Pacific vaka or va'a sailing with the New Zealand waka is the Samoan va'a 'Gaualofa' a 22-meter Samoan traditional ocean sailing double hulled voyaging canoe, which joined the New Zealand waka hourua sailing out from Auckland up to Waitangi, down the East Coast and will end their journey tonight in Wellington.
We spoke to Fealofani Bruun, the female skipper of the Gaualofa one of only four women who have taken to the seas as the Queens of their vaka - including a female in Tonga and two in Tahiti.
"My experience with canoes was literally hanging on the back of the waka ama’s my mum would paddle with her team, and get scolded to get off. I started sailing at a very young age, 4 or 5 years old. My parents sail competitively and represent their own countries so its always been something I've been interested in. Being on a traditional voyaging canoe is just the puff on the cream cake, it makes it all whole.
When I started back in 2009 I was pretty fresh. My first point with the canoes was seeing the canoes and an article in the local newspaper. They were recruiting for Samoa’s very own traditional canoe and I jumped for joy and rocked up to the meeting. It started by making tea for everyone, I was the tea extraordinaire! I started from the bottom just like everybody else.'
From there she took part with the Pacific Voyagers project in 2009. They did the trial run in 2010 and the big voyage around the world in 2011 coming back home to the Pacific in 2012.
"Learning navigation through the stars is still a learning process. Its amazing, a lot of numbers, calculations and pressure. Everybody's lives are in your hands, and you being more or less the eyes of the canoe, you have to make sure your eyes are always open figuratively and literally."
When asked how they felt being invited to be part of the Waka Odyssey she said "We are honored that they thought about us, it was pretty amazing when we received the invite. This will be possibly one of the few pacific canoes there and we need to bring it."
Joining Fealofani and the Gaualofa crew is half Samoan, Half Dutch president of the Samoan Voyaging Society, Schannel 'Sagele" van Dijken, who is also a voyager. The Samoan Voyaging Society (SVS) is a non-profit Samoan organisation that is reviving the heritage of traditional ocean voyaging/navigation and environmental stewardship with new generations of Samoans and other Pacific Islanders.
The Society is also the caretaker of the Gaualofa, which is used as a platform to deliver traditional navigation/way-finding and ocean and environmental education programming around Samoa and surrounding Islands.
"I’m hoping young islanders are going to be inspired by looking at alternative ways to have a living. To become a sailor, when you’re learning, there’s a lot to take onboard but its very practical. Islanders are generally very practical and hands on, so they pick that stuff up quickly and it’s really great. You can get really good livelihoods through becoming qualified skippers and sailors. Then when you’re on the va’a, because its not all about the sailing, you’re also learning how to learn sustainably, learning about your culture and where you’ve come from. For us as a society, a lot of it is building up the youth and confidence, making them also see that they can be better. We have problems with youth no having jobs, so they can get into trouble, but this gives another alternative and opens up other opportunities."
He said it's also hugely important to keep getting the ocean awareness and vaka culture message out there and said it's our responsibility right now because our ocean is not in a good place
"There’s been a lot of things that we’ve done when you come down to the local level, like the over fishing we do locally. So getting the messages from what we know in science, out to our communities and better ways of managing our resources, that’s hugely important, because that actually has benefits for our communities. Then they can have more sustainable uses of their resources and so it can go further. Using the Vaka and the culture is the perfect platform for that because it marries all these principles." he said.
Schannel is also extremely excited to be part of the Waka Odyssey and the New Zealand Festival especially seeing as they'll be the only Pacific Va'a.
"Its quite a big responsibility for us too, because we are representing the pacific and we take that seriously. We want to represent all of our brothers and sisters from Fiji and the Cook islands and the rest of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia aswell. Its unfortunate that they cant come and bring their vaka’s down here. It takes a heap of people and effort to move these mountains. Its not easy, its worth it but its not easy. There’s so much organization and planning and so many moving parts, so it’s a big undertaking. A lot of these voyaging societies, the caretakers of these canoes, they’re all voluntary, there’s no one-person where that’s their job. A lot of us have been working our jobs as well as this."
To catch the Gaualofa and crew in Wellington this weekend check out the Waka Odyssey website here, there'll be the opportunity to go on board and out around the harbour for a quick sail with the crew as well.
PC - Hero image of Fealofani by Samoa Observer