Content from Maiden Voyage Productions

This award-winning PBS documentary sweeps viewers into a seafaring adventure with a community of Polynesians, as they build traditional sailing canoes, learn how to follow the stars across the open ocean, and embark upon a 2,000-mile voyage in the wake of their ancestors.

The Hawaiian people have a rich historical and cultural tradition. Their values, art, music, gods and legends reach back thousands of years to ancient Polynesia, where they lived before sailing to the islands we know as Hawai‘'i. Recently, there have been efforts to revitalize these traditions and teach them to young Hawaiians. Hawai'i: Continuing Traditions looks at ways in which the “"spirit of the land" lives today, as we explore special places, where old ways are thriving in the modern world. Visit a working taro plantation in Maui and an isolated fishing village on the isalnd of Hawai‘'i. Discover how a small community in Kaua‘'i creates beautiful shell necklaces, and voyage back in time on an ancient Polynesian sailing canoe.

In the Wake of Our Ancestors follows a group of dedicated Hawaiians, who embark on a journey to rediscover their past by building a voyaging canoe out of traditional natural materials. An extensive search fails to produce koa trees large enough for the hulls. The once plentiful forests on the island of Hawai’i have been depleted, and the unique koa ecosystem virtually destroyed. Native Alaskans offer them two enormous Sitka spruce trees. After a dramatic tree felling ceremony in the forests of Southeast Alaska, the logs arrive in Hawai‘i, and builders begin shaping the canoe’s hulls. The generous gift from the Tlingit and Haida Indians of Southeast Alaska brings new hope for the canoe project and leads to discovery of strong cultural connections. This story of an indigenous people’s frustrated search for trees that are endemic to their islands represents a microcosm of the threats facing diminishing native cultures and natural environments in the modern world.