New course

for Dennis

Dennis Alessio came out to Marshall Islands aboard MariMed Foundation’s tall ship Tole Mour in 1988. Twenty years on, he’s packed his bags, heading for new challenges.

Although Alessio in his modest way would downplay the contributions he made to the revival of outrigger canoe culture in the Marshall Islands, he has had as much — or more— to do with it than any other individual.

But beyond the huge role in canoe work in the RMI, Alessio has had a big behind-the-scenes impact on the development of the non-government organization sector.

His work promoting NGOs included founding Waan Aelon in Majel (WAM) program, helping establish the Marshall Islands Council of NGOs four years ago, and elevating the profile of the NGO Council and other affiliated NGOs in the international donor community.

He left Majuro last week for a new home on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Canoe

Part one of a three-part series

by GIFF JOHNSON

It’s hard to think about outrigger canoes in the Marshall Islands without Dennis Alessio’s name popping into mind. For nearly 20 years, Alessio has been at the heart of a revival of interest in canoe building, sailing and navigation. Alessio left the Marshall Islands last week but his legacy in canoe building continues to reverberate through the Waan Aelon in Majel (Canoes of the Marshall Islands) program, now ably run by Alson Kelen.

You might call his move to the Big Island of Hawaii the end of an era, but thankfully not the end of a program. As so many things in life are, Alessio’s arrival here was quite by accident, despite his interest in Pacific canoes.

A skilled wooden boat builder, he was occupied in the late 1980s with teaching the art of boat building to students in the state of Washington when he was asked to bring a team of carpenters and supervise all the woodworking on the Tole Mour tall ship that was being built in Seattle by the MariMed Foundation for health service in the Marshall Islands. Tole Mour was modeled on the three-masted tall ships that once plied the Pacific carrying trade goods between Asia and the Americas.

As he and the team got going on installing the decks and all the cabinetry on the 156-foot vessel, Alessio began researching the Marshall Islands and Pacific canoes. “I didn’t see much information about canoes generally, and none about how to build them,” he said. His interest in canoes dated back a few years earlier to when he was in Fiji and involved in an international boat building training program. “I was in Fiji and I wanted to start a business of building Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) designed canoes for local fishing,” Alessio said. “But I had no money.”

His work on Tole Mour segued into becoming a crew member. “The US Coast Guard required us to sail the vessel with only six crew to show that Tole Mour was seaworthy,” Alessio told the Journal.

“It was quite a deal — six of us running up to the top of the masts to open the sails — but we were so intimate with the ship (from building it), it worked well.” The Coast Guard declared it seaworthy and a few months later, in late 1988, the vessel was sailed from the US to Majuro. “When we delivered the ship to Majuro, I didn’t see any canoes in the lagoon,” Alessio said. Later on, he saw one. “The one I saw was over by MJCC, owned by an older guy who used to go out fishing in it.”

While on Majuro, he bumped into Gerry Knight, who was running Alele Museum at the time. Knight tried to sign up Alessio to work on an outrigger canoe documentation project that he was developing. But Alessio had other fish in the frying pan after delivering

Tole Mour. Though he was interested in Knight’s offer, he had already committed to a job in the Netherlands to finish a similar tall ship.

The following year, Alessio returned to the Marshalls to work with Alele Museum, which was sending a Jaluit outrigger to the Field Museum to become part of a permanent exhibit on the Pacific islands at the famed Chicago museum.

“Gennade Leon from Jaluit donated a canoe of his for the Field Museum,” Alessio said. “The Field Museum provided money to buy him an outboard motorboat, but Gennade didn’t want one. He wanted an outrigger built with a plywood hull.” Outriggers were virtually always built from breadfruit logs, so Leon’s idea was a big departure from tradition, but one that would prove far more sustainable in the future, when breadfruit logs became more scarce.

Alessio and Leon worked on a canoe at Matt Holly’s place in Uliga. “Gennade taught me how to build a canoe from a log, using traditional measuring techniques.” Understanding the traditional canoe design allowed Alessio to produce a “loft” — three views of the canoe, from the top down, from the side and up from the bottom — from which to build the canoe from plywood. Wooden boat builders have used the “loft” design method for just about as long as they’ve been building boats. Konou Smith, a high school student at the time, was involved in the building project, Alessio recalls.

“I did the hull and Gennade built the other parts,” Alessio said.

This was not as simple as it sounds. A very few people in the country are considered master builders and traditional navigators. Historically, this knowledge was not widely shared, but only passed along to carefully selected sons or close relatives who proved worthy of carrying on the skills to the next generation.

To get around this “problem” in dealing with Alessio, an American, Leon did an island-style adoption of Alessio. “He called me ‘neju’ (my son) because he needed to do this to pass the information on to me,” he said. At the time, Leon was somewhat of an anomaly, since very few canoes were being built in the late 1980s and the keepers of the knowledge were generally not sharing the information with the next generation — a reflection of how modernization and urbanization were shaping island attitudes. “All the information was in people’s heads, but it was not being passed along.”

Among the things Alessio learned from Leon is that there are five main canoe designs in the Marshall Islands, with three styles.

Alessio wrapped up the work with Leon by producing a report with detailed diagrams to help future canoe builders. But why stop at one canoe? The idea was hatched to continue the documentation program for the other designs.

Alfred Capelle, the curator of the museum, was very supportive of the idea, and introduced Alessio to Chief Secretary Oscar deBrum, who was equally enthusiastic, telling Alessio, “canoes are in the heart of all Marshallese.” These discussions sparked encouragement from President Amata Kabua, Senator Tony deBrum, local businessman Dennis Momotaro and others, Alessio recalled.

But there wasn’t any money for the work, and it was a shoestring existence for Alessio for a while. He lived for a bit at the MariMed office in Uliga, and then was given a small office at Alele. “I kept a mat there and often slept on the floor next to my desk,” Alessio recalled with a laugh.

The Jaluit canoe sent to the Field Museum had been done under a project known as Waan Aelon Kein (canoes of these islands), and the documentation project kept the name.

Alessio soon headed for Likiep to work on a canoe with local master builders.

“When I first arrived at Likiep, there was one canoe being used on Jebel or Melan” (small islands in Likiep’s lagoon), he said. “Other canoes were laying unused on the beach, old and rotting.”

Alessio proposed a canoe race with prizes to get people excited about canoes, and enlisted support from Carmen Bigler, the Internal Affairs secretary.

“We got 13 canoes fixed for the race all the while we were working on building a new 18-foot canoe from a breadfruit log,” he said, adding that each step was documented with photos and videotape.

“We involved Likiep students in the building project,” he said. “It was fantastic, living outer islands life.” Race day brought out virtually every person on Likiep, and infused the community with excitement for canoes.

The race and student participation at Likiep convinced Alessio that this was a great formula for future canoe work in the RMI.

Reincarnation

Vessels of Ujelang and Wotho

A former American Peace Corps volunteer who worked on Ujelang in the mid-1970s snapped these fine photos of outrigger canoes. Above, Ujelang islanders sail out on a fishing trip; right, a canoe on Wotho Atoll; and below, on Ujelang, Luta planes a wood plank that he used to repair the canoe in the background. By the 1980s, fewer and fewer canoes were being built and sailed both on the remote outer islands, and especially in Majuro. Photos by David Anderson.
‘To get around this “problem” in dealing with Alessio, an American, Leon did an island-style adoption of Alessio. “He called me ‘neju’ (my son) because he needed to do this to pass the information on to me.”’