Museum guide Ross McKenzie said since first visiting the museum as a child he was drawn to vaka and waka on display throughout the museum.
He later became a boatbuilder, creating mostly catamarans as well as power boats. This knowledge has come in handy as he takes visitors on tours of the museum’s collection of historic craft.
A good place to start was the model display, which highlighted an impressive history of maritime innovation by people of the Pacific, with water crossings going back potentially 65,000 years.
Many of the bigger canoes back in Polynesia were made from many parts but the presence of long, straight trees in Aotearoa enabled huge waka to be constructed from virtually one single piece of wood.
A hybrid waka put together in the museum in the 1930s provided an example of beautiful and elaborate design including rauawa decorated panels.
A favourite in the museum for Mr McKenzie was a very simple fishing boat, or waka tiwai, discovered at Kaikai Beach and later used to store black fish oil.
"You can almost picture two guys in this, one is in the front maybe with his hoe, his oar.
"And his other companion is in the back with a lure on a harakeke (flax) line."
- Mr McKenzie is sharing his understanding of boat-building and historic waka and vaka during guided tours on Sundays at 3pm. Visit otagomuseum.nz for details.
