Kualoa Park Hosting Canoe Fest Saturday

This Saturday will see a gathering of canoes, and the people who love them, from 10 a.m to 3 p.m. at Kualoa Regional Park.

The city parks department’s third annual Kualoa/Hakipu’u Canoe Festival aims to capture the historic and ancient traditions of canoeing with exhibits, demonstrations, canoe rides and visiting vessels on view to the public, such as the Hokule’a, Kama Uheheu and the educational voyaging canoe Kanehunamoku. Students from both the Halau Ku Mana and Hakipu’u Learning Center charter schools will host instructive booths with hands-on activities about ancient Polynesian voyaging. Food booths also are planned.

Also at the festival, the nonprofit God’s Country Waimanalo plans the first sail of Ho’omana’o Mau (everlasting remembrance), its newly dedicated 50-foot, single-hulled sailing canoe.

Besides its history as a sacred place of refuge, the Kualoa shoreline also served at the launching site for Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Hokule’a in 1975.

For more information, call Iris Fukunaga at the park office, 237-8525.