That second life had a price. To drain the wetlands — officially against mosquitoes, in practice to turn marsh into buildable land — the territory dug the Ala Wai Canal between 1921 and 1928, diverting the very streams that had given Waikīkī its name. The taro patches and fishponds were filled, the Hawaiian families who farmed them displaced, and the spouting waters stilled. What rose in their place was the modern resort district the world now knows — built, quite literally, over the drained breadbasket of old Waikīkī.
From the mid-1400s, Hawaiians turned that wetland into one of the most productive landscapes in the islands. They built loʻi kalo — irrigated taro terraces — and loko iʻa, walled fishponds, laced together by ʻauwai (irrigation channels), raising taro, fish, and seaweed in steady abundance. Waikīkī was a breadbasket and a center of power: high chiefs kept residences and heiau here, drawn by the food, the fresh water, and the surf. At Kālia, on the western shore, a family of fishers and watermen worked the ponds — and among their descendants would be a boy named Duke Kahanamoku.
Why People Visit Waikīkī
Waikīkī offers a whole world in two miles of sand: the birthplace of modern surfing, royal history beneath the hotels, Diamond Head at the end of the beach, and the easy warmth of Hawaiian hospitality. It is the most famous beach in the Pacific — and for the surfers, paddlers, and families who live and gather here, simply home.
