PORT TOWNSEND — Connecting with the ocean, its weather and its living creatures: These are topics of conversation when Marianne “Mimi” George speaks about her experiences sailing the Pacific.
Thursday evening at 5 p.m., the mariner and cultural anthropologist will give a talk and answer questions during her “Ask an Expert” online program.
Hosted by the nonprofit Northwest Maritime Center and Wooden Boat Foundation, George’s presentation is titled “Voyaging Revivals of Oceania: How Ancient Navigation and Boat Building is Useful Today.”
The talk will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing; to purchase a $9.99 ticket, visit www.woodenboat.org/ask-an-expert/.
“It’s kind of a broad-ranging talk in a way. I’m going to talk about several different experts in ancestral voyaging knowledge, in several different communities,” George said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon from her home base of Kauai, Hawaii.
“The whole point of it is to kind of set up a Q-and-A and discussion about ancient voyaging knowledge and the fact that various people and communities are still using it. There is a lot they know that could help the modern world to do things much better,” she said.
In its invitation to George’s program, the Wooden Boat Foundation lists a few examples of problems this ancient knowledge could address, including youth unemployment, biodiversity loss and climate change.
George, now 70, has spent decades documenting the voyaging traditions of Austronesian people in Papua New Guinea, the Bering Straits and the Solomon Islands.
In recent years, she has come through Port Townsend to present at the Wooden Boat Festival, and in spring 2020 her documentary, “We the Voyagers: Our Moana” screened during the Women & Film festival.
In her research papers, presentations and books, George also describes the prominent roles of women and children in voyaging cultures, and how the revival of ancestral voyaging networks can strengthen both the human community and the natural world.
It was nearly 30 years ago that Te Matua of Kahula, Taumako, also known as Old Man Kaveia, recruited George. He wanted her to help realize his plan to teach a new generation how to build and sail voyaging canoes using the ancient methods — and she has since used her writing and filmmaking to reach the so-called First World.
Kaveia died in 2009 at the estimated age of 98; George continues to be inspired by her work with him.
George’s hope is for voyagers — from Polynesia, the Pacific Northwest and beyond — to connect with one another at events such as the Wooden Boat Festival. The event, canceled in 2021, is scheduled to return on the first weekend of September.
The Ask an Expert series has three more online programs this winter: “Creating a Vessel Stewardship Plan” on Feb. 17, “Northwest Maritime Center Adventure Races: 2022 Is Not Going to Suck” on March 3 and “LGBTQ+ and Finding My Way in the Maritime Industry” on March 17. Each is 90 minutes long, with more information available at festival@woodenboat.org or 360-385-3628, ext. 117.
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
