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National park sites in Hawaiʻi protect more than famous lava flows, beaches, waterfalls and lush forests. In Hawaiʻi, national parks also protect and preserve Native Hawaiian cultural sites rich with meaning, history, and even mystery. One of the most intriguing mysteries swirls around the meanings of those most Hawaiian of symbol systems: petroglyphs.

Petroglyphs are shapes made by pecking into stone using very hard rock tools to break through the shiny volcanic crust of a lava field. In pre-contact Hawaiʻi, where there was no writing, no paper and ink, petroglyphs may have been meaning-laden public messages, possibly a way to commemorate a place, event, or person. The word for petroglyphs in Hawaiian: kiʻi pokahu.

Read more: Stone Stories: The Mystery and History of Hawaiian Petroglyphs

The Arrival

Uncountable generations ago, a seed or seeds from a plant in the sunflower family landed in a favorable spot on the as-yet-unpeopled Hawaiian Islands. The soil was adequate, the sun and rain were as well, the seed may have been deposited by a bird and, therefore, have arrived with a little bit of its own fertilizer. Eons would go by before humans arrived in their canoes, eons that afforded these sunflower-family plants the time to do something truly marvelous and absolutely spectacular: in this all-new environment, they evolved. And wow, did they evolve into something breathtaking.

Read more: The Story of Silverswords

National park resource managers, who are biologists, ecologists, and botanists, act as stewards for some of the rarest plants and animals on earth. The national parks sites in Hawaiʻi, justly famous for their lava flows, ocean views, stargazing and coastal trails, are also entrusted with the cultural legacy of the Native Hawaiian people.

Read more: The Amazing Women Who Work In Resources Management

Rhonda Loh is the fiercely intelligent and unfailingly kind Superintendent at HPPA partner Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (HVNP). She knows the park the way you only can by having walked, and studied, hundreds of miles of its terrain over decades. For Loh, this is home territory. Hawaiʻi Volcanoes has been her home, and her career anchor, since she first volunteered here in the spring of 1989.

Read more: Get To Know Rhonda Loh

January is officially Volcano Awareness Month in Hawaiʻi, an island state built completely of volcanoes old and new. Hot and fluid magma circulating in the planet’s mantle seeps up to and through the crust as a plume, and emerges on the seafloor in the middle of the Pacific Plate, where it methodically builds up a shield volcano. The plate is moving N/NW and subducting under Japan/Russia at a rate of about 5-10 centimeters a year. Like a great, slow, patient conveyor belt, the plate drifts over the “hot spot” of the mantle plume and volcanoes are built, one after the other.

Read more: Volcano Awareness Month is Every Month

Have you ever jumped in line to learn a simple hula? Woven a flower lei with the helpful advice of a cultural practitioner? Have you sampled the unfamiliar foods of a completely different culture? Tried your hand at throwing a handmade fishing net, carving a simple gourd, stamping your own creative designs on textiles? Have you attended a Hawaiian cultural festival at our partner national parks in Hawaiʻi?

Read more: Experiencing Authentic Hawaiʻi at the National Parks

It seems like they have always been there, part of the park experience, a wonderful visitor center store packed with “here and only here” books, clothes, art, photography, gifts for kids, and so much more. Where did they begin? Who runs them? What is done with the proceeds?

Have you ever wondered any of that?

Read more: Where Did National Parks “Bookstores” Come From?

Traditionally, two seasons were named and recognized in Hawaiʻi: Kau and Hoʻoilo. Kau was hotter, drier, what we generally think of as summer. Hoʻoilo was wetter, cooler, closer to a winter feeling. Both seasons were ushered in by changes in the positions of the constellations, and the months of the seasons were dedicated to different pursuits depending on whether it was time to farm or fish, harvest or let the land and sea rest, and so forth. Despite no longer being how we officially track seasons and weather in present day Hawaiʻi, the feeling between the two seasons is pronounced, and longtime residents can sense when the shifts from one to the other are in motion. Humpback whales also begin arriving in Hawaiian waters, making it possible to whalewatch from the shores of our partner parks. One of the best books we carry on the subject of humpback whales in Hawaiʻi is here: https://shop.hawaiipacificparks.org/products/hi-humpback-unveiled

Read more: Hawaiʻi Winter in Hawaii's National Parks

Aloha and hello, and welcome to our first blog. Who are we? Are we interesting? What do we do? Does it matter to you? Well, this is what we say on our website: Who We Are HPPA is a nonprofit cooperating association working in partnership with the National Park Service in Hawaiʻi and American Samoa. Proceeds from our park stores support interpretation, educational programs, research projects, publications, and cultural activities But...what does that mean?

Read more: Who Are We And Does It Matter To You?