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Location
Haiku is ten minutes past
Paia on the way to Hana, and extends from the ocean to
several miles upcountry.
Information & History
Haiku is
Maui's cultural melting pot, where custom million dollar
homes sit cheek by jowl with funky, run-down plantation
shacks with rusty derelict cars in the front and roosters
scratching in the yard. The scenery here is vividly green,
with riotous bursts of color from the tropical flowers which
grow everywhere. The ambience is very comfortable and laid
back - a nice place to walk through and explore. Town, such
as it is, consists of a post office, a couple of stores, and
a couple of light industrial buildings. This is the last
outpost of civilization before Hana, and the mellowing
peaceful vibe that is Hana's is starting to be felt.
Like most of Maui, the community of Haiku can trace its
historical roots back to agriculture.
In the 1860's, two sons of missionaries, Samuel Alexander
and Henry Baldwin, planted 12 acres of this new crop. The
next year, Alexander and Baldwin added some 5,000 acres in
Maui's central plains and started Hawaii's largest sugar
company. They quickly discovered that without the copious
amounts of rainfall found in Hana, they would need to get
water to their crop, or it would fail. In 1876 they
constructed an elaborate ditch system that took water from
rainy Haiku some 17 miles away to the dry plains of Wailuku,
a move which cemented the future of sugar in Hawaii.
The community began to flourish around the start of the 20th
century. Pineapple became a key crop with the construction
of a local cannery in 1904. The quiet agricultural community
was home to people from all over the Pacific Rim, native
Hawaiians and Anglos who came to work and manage the
pineapple fields. An influx of newcomers came to the area in
the 60s, as hippies migrated to this slice of paradise. The
quiet community offered a place to get back to nature and
live a simpler life than they might have found on the
mainland. The 80s brought windsurfers drawn to nearby
Ho'okipa beach park and its abundant wind and waves.
Links:
Maui Map
North Shore Maui Museums & Landmarks
North Shore Maui Beaches
North Shore Maui Hiking & Camping
North Shore Snorkeling & Scuba
Diving
North Shore Watersports
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