To Find the Way

When the time is right for sailing, the Polynesian voyaging canoe Ar'i-ati-tai sets off from Tahiti for islands far to the north where no one in memory has sailed before. Passengers and crew crowd the decks and say goodbye forever to their homeland. In command is high chief and navigator Vahi-roa, grandfather to the boy Teva. Teva is torn betweem sadness and pride, and he is troubled by doubts. Yet he knows he must face the challenges of the voyage in order to learn his "grandfather's sky"--the accumulated knowledge of many generations of wayfinders.

Will they survive the long voyage? Will the chants guide them to their destination? Will Vahi-roa's knowledge sustain them? Or will the unknown swallow them all, as it did Teva's father?

This story is the human side of a most extraordinary historical accomplishment--the voyage from Tahiti to Hawai'i by the ancient Polynesians, who without maps or charts but armed with a vast understanding of sea and sky, crossed thousands of miles of open ocean. Told from the point of view of a child, To Find the Way is a story of courage and survival, of coming of age, and of learning to trust the ancient knowledge of a seafaring people.