Mikaele Foley, Author at PCC Legacy

Mark Ellis captains the Iosepa in 2024 on its first voyage in the past eight years

In 2024, BYU–Hawaii alumnus Mark Ellis became the Polynesian Cultural Center’s first director of voyaging experiences, leading the Iosepa on its first open-ocean journey in eight years. The 57-foot double-hulled canoe joined 26 traditional vessels at FestPAC in Kualoa, then circumnavigated O‘ahu before returning to Lā‘ie. Ellis, inspired as a boy by the Hōkūle‘a’s historic voyages, continues the renaissance of Pacific wayfinding traditions, strengthening Hawaiian identity and honoring ancestral knowledge preserved through generations of navigators.

The Polynesian Cultural Center sails the Iosepa, BYU–Hawaii's 57-foot wa'a kaulua or traditional Hawaiian canoe, past Mokoli'i islet in Kaneohe Bay.

PCC’s new voyaging master sails the Iosepa

In June 2024, the Polynesian Cultural Center and BYU–Hawaii worked together to prepare and sail the beautiful 57-foot traditional wooden Hawaiian sailing canoe Iosepa to Kualoa to participate in the Pacific Festival gathering of canoes at Kualoa. On its way back to Laie, the Iosepa circumnavigated Oahu.

‘Polynesian Festival’ Wins Fans

Many of the Polynesian Cultural Center students who participated in the 1966 mainland promotion to the Hollywood Bowl and Salt Lake City said their visit with President David O. McKay and his wife, Emma, at their home in Huntsville, Utah, was the highlight of the trip.

Senior missionary recalls Center’s pre-1963 opening

When Elder Michael Theobald and his wife, Sister Shauna Theobald, completed their volunteer service as senior leadership training missionaries for full-time employees and orientation for new Center student workers in October 2017, it wasn’t his first experience at the Cultural Center.

In the summer of 1963, while labor missionaries and community volunteers were still finishing the future PCC, Elder Theobald was a 14-year-old teenager who also had opportunities to help. Read his memories about those early Center days at:

https://blog.polynesia.com/michael-theobald