Crew of Hawaiian Voyaging Canoe Hokule’a react to the devastating fires in Maui

The Hokule’a is a Hawaiian ancestral voyaging canoe on a four-year journey around the world that started in Hawaii earlier this year, and it is making its way down the west coast.

One of its stops was at Granville Island in Vancouver this week, and that is when the crew found out about the devastating fires in Maui.

Related links:

• Hawaii wildfire now deadliest in U.S. history

• Lahaina residents worry a rebuilt Maui town could slip into the hands of affluent outsiders

• ‘In the blink of an eye, it’s gone’: B.C. couple’s Lahaina home destroyed by wildfire

“We are just devastated by how much loss has happened in such a short amount of time, [the] loss of life,” said Jamaica Heolimelekalani Osorio of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

A native Hawaiian and crew member on the Hokule’a, Osorio says her crew has close connections to Lahaina, and they wish they could be there to help their community in need.

“The official count now is at 93, which makes this the most deadly fire in 100 years in the so-called ‘U.S.A.,'” Osorio said. “We have lost homes; we have lost community centres with archives of knowledge that cannot be reproduced or replicated.”

She says the storm winds, which got up to 60 miles an hour, fueled the wildfire and are unprecedented for Maui. Osorio says they were brought on because of the climate crisis.

“Part of the mission of this voyage is to get people back into the perspective and understanding that we have one earth,” she said. “There is no escaping to another planet.”

“So we need to make better decisions; we need to listen to those who are most effective, whose islands are being swallowed by rising seas or raging fires.

“That is something we believe at the heart of our work here at the Polynesian Voyaging Society. And it is something I believe in as an Indigenous native Hawaiian. We need to collectively make better decisions for our planet and our people,” she added.

The Hawaiian concept of ʻĀina’ is that all things within and around this world are part of an interconnected fabric.

“It’s our privilege, really, and we need to live in reciprocity with her,” she said, explaining there’s also a relationship with each other that mainstream conservation and environmentalism has forgotten, further separating people.

“This is where Indigenous leaders can lead at the forefront of a new way to think about preserving the earth not just for some … but maybe for the survival of all our people.”

Hawaiian-born Dr. Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz, a professor at UBC’s Faculty of Forestry, explains how the current environmental conditions on Maui combined with the effects of climate change contributed to the devastation.

“The grasslands that surrounded Lahaina are an invasive type of grasses, and those tend to burn really hot and very quickly,” Copes-Gerbitz said. “Most of Maui was also in moderate to extreme drought.”

Osorio says Maui doesn’t need any visitors right now, as all their resources need to go towards rebuilding and recovering from the fire.

“We need everyone to understand and our world leaders to understand that everyone in this world is connected,” she said. “The struggles and catastrophes are connected to one another, and the decisions that we make have impacts around the world.”