Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [358]
Another 6 miles further along is Keomuku, the center of the short-lived sugarcane plantation. There’s little left to see other than the somewhat reconstructed Ka Lanakila o Ka Malamalama Church, which was originally built in 1903. Under the dense tropical vegetation can be found other plantation ruins, including a steam locomotive and buildings, as well as clouds of mosquitoes.
Keomuku to Naha
Just under 2 miles further along the road, you reach Halepalaoa Landing, which was where the sugar company planned to ship out its product. But little was accomplished during its short life (1899–1901), other than to shorten the lives of scores of Japanese workers, who are buried in a small cemetery. On the ocean side, you’ll see the remains of Club Lana’i, a 1970s recreation spot that failed under dubious circumstances surrounding its finances. However there’s a pier here that’s maintained and which provides a good stroll out from the shore. In season you may hear whales breaching just offshore.
Running southeast from the pier is the shaded Halepalaoa beach that seems to have come from desert-island central casting and which runs to Lopa. There’s rarely anyone here.
Another 4 miles brings you to Naha, which is both the end of the road and the site of ancient fishponds just offshore. With the wind whistling in your ears, it’s an otherworldly place that seems utterly incongruous, given the view of developed Maui just across the waters. Look for traces of a flagstone path that ran from here right up and over the hills to the Palawai Basin.
ROAD TO GARDEN OF THE GODS
Strange rock formations, views that would overexcite a condo developer and more deserted beaches are the highlights of northwestern Lana’i.
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ECHOES OF A FRUIT
Lana’i is defined by the pineapple, ironic given that the spiky fruit is now imported to the island’s resorts and two markets. But evidence of its reign is everywhere. When you fly in, you pass over the ghostly outlines of vast fields that once produced one out of every three pineapples consumed worldwide. Much of the land – and island – now lies fallow.
Coming to terms with that past is an ongoing issue for the island today. Lana’i City is still very much the charming company town built by Jim Dole in the 1920s, but like the fields that were once its reason to exist, its very essence is in danger of going fallow. The stately order of vintage buildings around Dole Park is threatened by time and replacement. New buildings out of step with the old are proposed – and some are constructed (such as the current post office, which could be in Wichita). In 2006, the Historic Hawai’i Foundation, the leading advocate for cultural and historic preservation in the state, named the entire town as one of the most endangered places in Hawai’i.
Meanwhile, the two resorts opened in 1990 are successful but haven’t spawned the kind of additional development envisaged by Castle & Cooke, the corporate successor to Dole which still controls much of the island. Condos on Manele Bay sell for $2.5 million, more than twice what Dole paid for all of Lana’i in 1922. Sales are slow.
What next for Lana’i is a common question. Little of the island remains in a natural state – 10,000 goats brought by missionaries denuded much of the island in the decades before Dole even planted his first pineapple. Sheep ranches took care of the rest. Perhaps the pineapple shouldn’t be relegated to just a nickname. ‘Let’s plant some pineapples so visitors can see how this place worked,’ said one longtime resident. ‘It’s crazy that the pineapple at the resorts is imported. Let’s at least claim that part of our history.’
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It’s all reached via the Polihua Rd, which starts near the Lodge at Koele’s stables. The stretch of road leading to Kanepu’u Preserve and the Garden of