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    Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
    Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
    Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
    Ebook167 pages1 hour

    Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

    By Jeanette Foster

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    About this ebook

    Located in one of the most isolated places on the earth, thousands of miles from the nearest landmass, the area surrounding the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park was created by violent earthquakes and fiery volcanic eruptions. Shrouded in ancient myth and legend, the park's history dates back to a time before the Hawaiians first arrived. It was a time when gods and goddesses roamed throughout these islands; the most famous, the fierce goddess of the volcanoes, Pele, is believed to live here still. It took a decade of lobbying efforts to finally preserve this unique area as Volcanoes National Park. Since 1916, not only has this area been a national park for all to experience, but also the scientific advances due to the ability to constantly monitor the volcanic activity here has had a huge impact on the science of volcanology, understanding earthquakes, and creating an early warning system for tsunamis.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJan 5, 2015
    ISBN9781439649350
    Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
    Author

    Jeanette Foster

    Jeanette Foster is the author of more than 60 travel books on the Hawaiian Islands and is a resident of the Big Island of Hawai'i. She was assisted by the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park staff to obtain the archival images in the book.

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      Book preview

      Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park - Jeanette Foster

      guidance.

      INTRODUCTION

      It was the fire in the sky that drew them.

      The legends spoke of islands far, far away, that lit up the dark night skies. Brave open-ocean voyagers left their Polynesian homes and ventured into unknown waters, looking for a mythical land that was lit by fire.

      The islands were the most isolated on earth—located more than 2,000 miles from the nearest continent. Today, it is still unknown when the first Polynesian voyagers set foot on Hawaii. Some claim that it was 700 years ago, others say 1,000 years or even longer. Regardless, legends state that the Polynesians were guided by the light—the fire—of the erupting volcanoes.

      Legends also tell the story of Pele, the goddess of the volcano, who ventured to Hawaii looking for a home after the land was formed. She settled in the Kilauea Crater, on the island of Hawaii, where she remains today. Even today, Hawaiians point to photographs of lava eruptions that form the faint outline of a woman’s face and tell stories of an old (or young) woman walking alone in the dark.

      For generations, people have been drawn to these erupting volcanoes. The first written description of the Kilauea eruption comes from a 1794 journal of Archibald Menzies, the naturalist aboard Capt. George Vancouver’s ship, Discovery.

      It was William Ellis, however—a missionary with the London Mission Society—who described his astonishment over the 1823 eruption of Kilauea as he stood with wonder on the edge of its ancient craters, walked tremblingly along the brink of its smoking chasms, gazed with admiration on its raging fires, and witnessed, with no ordinary feelings of awe, the varied and sublime phenomena of volcanic action, in all its imposing magnificence and terrific grandeur.

      Upon seeing Kilauea in 1866, experienced world traveler Mark Twain wrote, Here was room for the imagination to work!

      Word of this sublime phenomena soon got out, but reaching the volcano was difficult. Kilauea was far from the island’s population centers—about 30 miles from the port of Hilo, on the eastern coast, and 90 miles from the village of Kona, on the western coast. The area could be reached on horseback via non-maintained, hard-to-follow trails. In 1844, a local resident erected a grass hut on the edge of the crater and began providing food to travelers. In 1846, Benjamin Pitman built the area’s first formal accommodations when he constructed Volcano House, which featured single rooms with mats on a dirt floor, on the side of Kilauea Crater.

      In 1906, Lorrin A. Thurston, publisher of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, started a campaign to make this amazing resource a public park. Six years later, Dr. Thomas A. Jaggar, a scientist who came to Hawaii to establish and serve as director of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, joined efforts with Thurston to convince the public, politicians, and anyone who would listen to protect the volcanoes by making the area a national park.

      On August 1, 1916, Pres. Woodrow Wilson signed the country’s 13th national park into existence. At the time, the park—which was called Hawaii National Park—consisted of some 35,865 acres around Kilauea, 17,920 acres around the nearby Mauna Loa volcano, and a small strip of land connecting the two volcanoes. The park also included the volcano of Haleakala (which became a national park on August 21, 1961) on the island of Maui. Today, the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park consists of 333,086 acres located in the southeastern region of the island of Hawaii. The park ranges from the top of Mauna Loa, at 13,677 feet, down to sea level and includes a diverse range of ecosystems, including seacoast, rainforests, woodlands, and alpine reaches. It also includes—as it always has—two of the world’s most active volcanoes: Kilauea (which has been erupting nearly continuously since 1983) and Mauna Loa (which last erupted in 1984). Additionally, UNESCO declared the Hawaiian Islands as a Biosphere Reserve in 1980 and designated the park as a World Heritage Site in 1987.

      Over the last century, the park has contributed to the science of volcanology by offering scientists a front-row seat to watch erupting volcanoes. The park played a role in the development of a scientific theory regarding volcanoes and tectonic plates in the late 1960s. Some places on the planet contain hot spots—areas where the temperature of molten lava reaches some 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The earth consists of constantly shifting tectonic plates. As these tectonic plates passed over the hot spots, volcanoes were formed. In terms of the Hawaiian island chain, the older islands begin at the northwest end of the chain and get younger as one moves south and east toward the island of Hawaii, the youngest and largest, which is estimated to be only one million years old.

      Hawaii Volcanoes National Park also serves ecological and cultural purposes. Ecologically, it is a refuge for endangered species like the honu ‘ea (hawksbill turtle), nene (Hawaiian goose), ‘ua‘u (Hawaiian petrel), ‘io (Hawaiian hawk), and ope‘ape‘a (Hawaiian hoary bat). Culturally, the park protects and perpetuates the culture of indigenous Hawaiians.

      Every year, 1.5 million visitors make the journey up to the park entrance located 4,000 feet above sea level. There, they can traverse 66 miles of paved roads and 155 miles of marked trails as they experience, with no ordinary feelings of awe, the miracle of creation as molten lava erupts from within the earth and pours down the side of the mountain.

      So it is the fire that continues to draw people. Silhouetted against the fire of the eruption, visitors to the park stand on the edge of the earth—just as the native Hawaiians probably did thousands of years before—drawn there to witness the mountain’s dual act of creation and destruction.

      Watching the lava at night is perhaps the greatest show on earth; its ruby rivers snake down the volcanic slope, running just below the surface, and then emerge from their subterranean tunnels only to gush into

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