La`ie is home to the Mormon Temple, Brigham Young University and the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is Hawaii's most popular paid attraction. The area also contains some of the quieter beaches on the island that are great for swimming and other water activities.
La`ie Temple
Shopping
Foodland grocery store is located in the La`ie Shopping Center that also contains a movie theatre, video rental shop and the post office. At Foodland, ask for a Maika`i card, a free discount card that saves you money on many items.
Sightseeing
Polynesian Cultural Center, tel. 808-293-3333 or 800-367-7060, www.polynesia.com. Named one of the most popular visitor attractions in Hawaii, this 42-acre park promotes all of the Polynesian communities including Fiji, Hawaii, Aot-earoa (New Zea-land), Marquesas, Sa-moa, Tahiti and Tonga. The center opened in 1963 as a non-profit dedicated to help preserve the cultural heritage of Polynesia. It employs about 1,300 people, in-cluding 750 students from 70 countries and from nearly every state.
The center brings to life the traditions, history and hospitality of se-ven Pacific cultures. Visitors can mingle with natives of each culture as they demonstrate exotic hip-swaying dances, spear-throwing, climbing coconut trees barefoot, tribal tattooing and making jewelry. Two IMAX theatres are also on the property, as well as authentic Polynesian games and a tropical canoe ride.
The Center's Gateway Restaurant comfortably seats about 1,000 diners and is considered the largest restaurant in the South Pacific. Its décor includes 40-foot representations of Easter Island stone sculptures and 60-foot images of Maori manaia birdman figures.
Just for Kids: A "Passport to Polynesia" is available at the ticket booth for all children, offering activities and opportunities to collect stamps of every culture. It also contains some brain-picking questions for kids as well as coupons for meal deals at nearby restaurants.
The Polynesian Cultural Center is open Monday through Saturday from 12:30 to 9 pm. The Center is closed on Sundays. General admission packages start at $40 for adults and $36 for kids. Children under age three are free. Upgrades to other Polynesian Cultural Center packages, including the Ali`i Lu`au and the Horizons night show, are available for purchase.
If one day isn't enough for you and your family to explore the Polynesian Cultural Center there are special promotions for people who order some of the higher-end package deals, allowing visitors to return at no charge over the next three days.
Luau Alert! The Polynesian Cultural Center has one of the most extravagant dinner shows. Called "Horizons," more than 100 native performers show such talents as fire walking and fire knife dancing. An authentic Polynesian arts and crafts marketplace is also open during the show. But this is a dry luau, meaning there is no alcohol served. Remember, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints runs the center.
La`ie Point, which juts out into the ocean right from the middle of town, is one of Oahu's most popular spots to take photos. It is home to two natural wonders – the arched isle kn-own as Kukui-ho`olua and the rocky point with in-tense, crashing waves.- To get to La`ie Point, pass the Polynesian Cultural Center on Kamehameha Highway (Hwy 83) and turn onto Anemoku. Make a left on Naupaka and take it to the end at the parking area.
La`ie Point
Also known as Moku`auia, Goat Island can be seen offshore when visiting the Malaekahana Bay State Recreation Area, which is about .4 miles past the Polynesian Cultural Center. The island is about 600 feet offshore and is a bird sanctuary with over 10 species of seabirds.
Goat Island has three beaches, which are accessible by foot at low tide by wading over the reef that extends from Cooke's Point to the point of Goat Island that extends closest to shore. You can find out when low tide occurs by looking in the newspaper. You can also get to the island by paddling over on a surfboard, raft or kayak if the water conditions are calm. Wear reef shoes or old tennis shoes to protect your feet.
Hawaiian History: La`ie, which means "Leaf of the `ie`ie vine," is named for the legendary princess La`ieikawai, who was hidden away in a nearby freshwater pool to protect her from mortal men.
Beaches
La`ie Beach Park is located south of the town of La`ie. It's a quiet beach with a large coral reef, which makes it nice for swimming as the reef protects swimmers from the surf. Beginning and intermediate surfers and boogie boarders also enjoy La`ie Beach Park. Watch the ocean conditions closely as there are no lifeguards or facilities.
Hukilau Beach Park is on La`ie Bay, just north of the town of La`ie. In the Hawaiian language, "huki" translates to pull and "lau" means net. In the mid-1900s, the community would gather to pull the fishing nets into the shore and would then celebrate their catch with a festival. The Hukilau festivals were held at this beach from the 1940s through the 1970s. This nice sandy beach is a great place to have a picnic or just enjoy the sun. Be careful as there are no lifeguards or facilities.
Malaekahana State Recreation Area, just north of La`ie, is good for swimming, bodysurfing, beach-related activities and shore fishing. Don't be surprised if you see some of the endangered Hawaiian green sea turtles – they have made Malaekahana Bay their home.
Adventures on Water
Surfing
There are several spots around La`ie that are not well known and are hard to find. That means they're less crowded than the others, which is a great quality on a busy surf island.
Goat Island is about 600 feet offshore from Malaekahana Bay State Park north of La`ie town. This is a great spot for shortboard and longboard surfing as well as bodyboarding. Goat Island is good for surfing year-round, but especially during the winter.
PCC is across from the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC, get it?). Park along the highway and grab your shortboard for year-round actions. Bodyboarders will also enjoy PCC.
Scuba Diving
Goat Island is also a great beginner/intermediate scuba spot as well as a fun place for snorkeling. Scuba divers can enter from the beach for this shallow dive. You'll see lots of reef fish, lobsters, crabs and octopuses.
Body Surfing/Boogie Boarding
Pounders is at La`ie Beach Park and is good for body surfing and boogie boarding.
Where to Eat
Hukilau Café, 55-662 Wahinepe`e Street, tel. 808-293-1253. Located off the Kamehameha Highway, this hideaway serves breakfast and lunch and has a fabulous word-of-mouth reputation. Breakfast is served from 7 to 11 am and the famous beef stew omelette is legendary. The delicious French toast is made with Hawaiian sweet bread and pancakes can be made with bananas, coconut or blueberries. Lunch is served from 10 am to 2 pm and guests rave about the teriyaki beef plate. The mahimahi tempura and shrimp tempura plate lunches are also worth a mention. $.
Tiki-Style Mickey D's: Next to the Laie Inn this is the only tiki-style McDonalds I've ever seen. Its unique A-frame architecture and Hawaiian décor make it worth checking out! It also has a local specialty – chili-rice and eggs with Spam, and saimin.
L & L Drive Inn, 55-510 Kamehameha Highway (in the La`ie Shopping Center), tel. 808-293-8887, www.hawaiianbarbecue.com, calls its cuisine Hawaiian Barbecue. It's fast food and there are several locations throughout O`ahu, the other Hawaiian Islands, and states like California, New York, Colorado, Texas and Utah. Plate lunches are popular and include a main entrée such as kalua pork served with two scoops of rice and one scoop of macaroni salad. $.
Where to Stay
Laie Inn, 55-109 Laniloa Street, tel. 808-293-9282 or 800-526-4562, www.laieinn.com, laieinn@hawaii.rr.com. The best thing this inn has going for it is the location. Right next to the Polynesian Cultural Center, the 49-room, two-story Laie Inn is a bit old but it does have free parking. The only reason to stay here would be if you were going to visit the Polynesian Cultural Center and wanted to avoid a late-night drive back to Waikiki or Windward O`ahu. Rooms range from doubles to queen and king sizes. The inn charges $10 per extra adult. Free wireless high speed Internet access is available. $$.
Vacation Rentals
For vacation rentals in La`ie and the surrounding area, check out www.vrbo.com, which stands for "Vacation Rentals By Owner."
Vacation Rentals.com also has listings for houses and cottages in the La`ie area. Visit them at www.vacationrentals.com.
Camping
Malaekahana State Recreation Area, north of La`ie, has a wooded beach park with camping facilities in the Kahuku Section. Camping permits for tent spaces are $5. The site has picnic tables, fire pits, toilets and hot outdoor showers. For more information about camping in State Parks in O`ahu, call tel. 808-587-0300.
Large, spacious tent cabins have been built by the Friends of Malaekahana, tel. 808-293-1736, PO Box 305, La`ie, HI 96762, and are an inexpensive way to camp in a beautiful beach park. Some cabins are $35 per night, accommodating up to six people; there are also beach houses that sleep 10 for $60 a night. Contact the Friends of Malaekahana for a brochure. And plan ahead as there is often a waiting list for these popular spots.
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Historically, Laie was a puʻuhonua, a sanctuary for fugitives. While a fugitive was in the pu'uhonua, it was unlawful for that fugitive's pursuers to harm him or her. During wartime, spears with white flags attached were set up at each end of the city of refuge. If warriors attempted to pursue fugitives into the puʻuhonua, they would be killed by sanctuary priests. Fugitives seeking sanctuary in a city of refuge were not forced to permanently live within the confines of its walls. Instead, they were given two choices: In some cases, after a certain length of time (ranging from a couple of weeks to several years), fugitives could enter the service of the priests and assist in the daily affairs of the puʻuhonua. A second option was that after a certain length of time the fugitives would be free to leave and re-enter the world unmolested. Traditional cities of refuge were abolished in 1819.[1]
The history of Laie begins long before first contact. The name Laie is said to derive from two Hawaiian words: lau meaning "leaf", and ie referring to the ʻieʻie (red-spiked climbing screwpine, Freycinetia arborea), which wreaths forest trees of the uplands or mauka regions of the mountains of the Koʻolau Range behind the community of Laie. In Hawaiian mythology, this red-spiked climbing screwpine is sacred to Kane, god of the earth, god of life, and god of the forests, as well as to Laka, the patron goddess of the hula.
The name Laie becomes more environmentally significant through the Hawaiian oral history (kaʻao ) entitled Laieikawai. In this history, the term ikawai, which means "in the water," also belongs to the food-producing tree called kalalaikawa. The kalalaikawa tree was planted in a place called Paliula's garden, which is closely associated with the spiritual home, after her birth and relocation of Laieikawai. According to Hawaiian oral traditions, the planting of the kalalaikawa tree in the garden of Paliula is symbolic of the reproductive energy of male and female, which union in turns fills the land with offspring. From its close association with nature through its name, and through its oral traditions and history, the community of Laie takes upon itself a precise identification and a responsibility in perpetuating life and in preserving all life forms. Sometimes the land itself provided sanctuary for the Hawaiian people. Laie was such a place. The earliest information about Laie states that it was a small, sparsely populated village with a major distinction: "it was a city of refuge." Within this city of refuge were located at least two heiau traditional Hawaiian temples, of which very little remains today. Moohekili heiau was destroyed, but its remains can be found in taro patches makai (seaward) of the LDS Church'sLaie Hawaii Temple. Towards the mountain (mauka), the remains of Nioi heiau can be found on a small ridge. All that is left of Nioi is a coral platform.[2]
Between 1846 and 1848, the traditional Hawaiian feudal ownership of land by the king, the ali'i nui, and his leading chiefs or konohiki was changed through the Great mahele, or major land division. The Ali’i nui at the time was Kauikeouli King Kamehameha III and his konohiki (leading chief) for Laie was Peni Keali’iwaiwaiole (which means The Chief without Riches); the wife to this konohiki descended directly from the Ali’i nui of Oahu named Kakuiewa, making his wife of higher rank than he. The result of the mahele was not in compliance with the original intent of Kamehameha III. The result was that the chiefs received about 1,500,000 acres (6,100 km2), the king kept about 1 million acres (4,000 km2), which were called crown lands, and about 1 million acres (4,000 km2) were set aside as government lands.
The land of the mahele itself was cut up into parcels, much like the traditional Hawaiian land divisions, centering around the ahupua'a, which followed a fairly uniform pattern. Each parcel was shaped roughly like a piece of pie with the tip in the mountains, the middle section in the foothills and coastal plain, and the broad base along the ocean front and the sea. The size and shape of the ahupua'a varied. However, the purpose of these remained the same. The village of Laie is located in the ahupua'a of Laie. As such, Laie followed the general pattern of life in the ahupua'a, but only the valleys in the foothills had ample water. There were ten streams that flowed through the ahupua'a of Laie before 1865 (see 1865 map). Their names were: Kahooleinapea, Kaluakauila, Kahawainui, Kaihihi, Kawaipapa, Kawauwai, Wailele, Koloa, Akakii, and Kokololio. There were more streams flowing through the ahupua'a of Laie than through any of the other surrounding ahupua'a, surrounding ahupua'ainclude Kaipapau and Hauula to the southeast and Malaekahana, Keana, and Kahuku to the northwest.
A new phase of development for Laie began when the plantation of that name was purchased by George Nebeker, the President of the Hawaiian Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Latter-day Saints in Hawaii were then encouraged to move to this location.[3] This purchase occurred in 1865.[4] The sugar plantation was rarely profitable, and through 1879 the church had subsidized its operations with about $40,000.[4]
Soon after the settlement a sugar factory was built. Much of the land was used to grow sugar, but other food crops were also raised. Significantly, Laie was one of the few sugar plantations where both kalo and sugar were grown simultaneously. This was unusual because sugar and kalo are both thirsty crops. In the plantation economy of Hawaii in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, kalo usually lost out to sugar. One of the reasons both kalo and sugar grew on the plantation is because of the commitment of Hawaiian plantation workers to growing their staple. Their dedication to growing kalo included their insistence that Saturday not be a work day on the plantation so that they could make poi for their families.[5] Both schools and church buildings were constructed in the town in the ensuing years.
Samuel E. Woolley, who served as mission president for 24 years, pushed the expansion of the operations at Laie. In 1898 he negotiated a $50,000 loan that allowed for the building of a new pump.[6]
The Hawaiian mission was headquartered in Laie until 1919 when the headquarters were moved to Honolulu, but by then the temple had been built in Laie, so it remained the spiritual center of the Latter-day Saint community in Hawaii.[7]
Though small, Laie has had a significant impact on Hawaiian culture, despite many of its residents' tracing their lineages from various Pacific Island countries such as Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, and New Zealand. Fundraisers and feasts on the beach in the late 1940s inspired "The Hukilau Song,"[10] written, composed and originally recorded by Jack Owens, The Cruising Crooner, and made famous by Alfred Apaka.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 2.1 square miles (5.5 km²). 1.3 square miles (3.3 km²) of it is land and 0.9 square miles (2.3 km²) of it (40.65%) is water.
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The coastline is marked by a prominent lithified dune jutting out into the ocean as Laie Point. Two other lithified dunes (Kukuihoolua and Mokualai) lie just offshore of the point as scenic islets. Laie Beach Park has been known by many names over the years. Called Pahumoa Beach Park first and named as such after John Pahumoa Kamakeʻeʻāina (1883-1944), a fisherman from Lāʻie Maloʻo in the late 1800s and early 1900s who lived here and kept his nets on the beach adjacent to Kōloa Stream. He was well known in Lāʻie for his generosity and gave fish to everyone in the village, especially to those who could not fish for themselves. Pahumoa conducted many hukilau, a method of community net fishing.[12] His family, the Kamakeʻeʻāinas, were a well known fishing family in the area and stories can still be found today of their abilities in fishing. Also popularly known as "Pounders Beach" for the offshore surf site. The name change occurred in the 1950s, when a group of students at the Church College of the Pacific (now Brigham Young University-Hawaii) called the beach "Pounders" after the shorebreak that provided popular bodysurfing rides; the nickname stuck. It is also known as "Hukilau Beach". The beach is located at the north end of town, at the mouth of Kahawainui Stream.
Demographics
Laie Point overlooking the Pacific Ocean to the east.
As of the census of 2000,[13] there were 4,585 people, 903 households, and 735 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 3,601.7 people per square mile (1,393.9/km²). There were 1,010 housing units at an average density of 793.4/sq mi (307.1/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 27.59% White, 0.35% Black or African American, 0.15% Native American, 9.23% Asian, 36.88% Pacific Islander, 0.65% from other races, and 25.15% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.12% of the population.
There were 903 households out of which 46.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 66.2% were married couples living together, 10.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 18.6% were non-families. 9.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 2.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 4.47 and the average family size was 4.75.
In the CDP the population was spread out with 31.8% under the age of 18, 21.8% from 18 to 24, 26.8% from 25 to 44, 14.5% from 45 to 64, and 5.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 24 years. For every 100 females there were 90.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.9 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $50,875, and the median income for a family was $59,432. Males had a median income of $40,242 versus $26,750 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $13,785. About 10.7% of families and 17.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.8% of those under the age of 18 and 11.6% of those ages 65 and older.
^ "Hawaii Place Names, Shores, Beaches, and Surf Sites" by John R. K. Clark, University of Hawaii Press, November 2001, Page 207, referring to Lahilahi Point and the LaMariana Sailing Club. As well as "Beaches of O`ahu, Revised Edition" by John R. K. Clark, University of Hawaii Press, 2004, page 91. Reference information annoted with updated information from the Kamake`e`āina family genealogical data by Kawika Kolomona Kamakeeaina, great-great grandson of John Pahumoa Kamake`e`āina.
Aikau, Hokulani K. (Winter 2008). "Resisting Exile in the Homeland: He Mo'olemo No Lā'ie". American Indian Quarterly (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press) 32 (1): 70–95. ISSN0095-182X.
Dorrance, William H. (1998). Oʻahu's Hidden History: Tours Into the Past. Honolulu, HI: Mutual Publishing. ISBN1-56647-211-3.
Sterling, Elspeth P.; Catherine C. Summers (1978). Sites of Oahu. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press. pp. 155–160. ISBN0910240736.
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