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Kaiāulu: Gathering Tides

by Mehana Blaich Vaughan

All book proceeds benefit Kīpuka Kuleana. Mahalo for your kākoʻo (support)!

$19.95

Common Ground is a Kauaʻi-based community hub that supports local entrepreneurs and businesses. They elevate stories, products and community connection through their "creative campus that brings together changemakers, thinkers and do-ers."

Special thanks to Jon Champlin, our champion at Common Ground!  

Mahalo to our local business partners and supporters!

Limited copies of Kaiāulu sold at the following locations: 

Kauaʻi

  • Limahuli Garden & Preserve Gift Shop (Hāʻena)

  • Sway Hanalei (Hanalei)

  • Hunter Gatherer (Kīlauea)

  • Taro Patch House (Kīlauea)

  • Aloha Exchange (Kīlauea, Kalaheo)

  • Kīlauea Lighthouse and Gift Shop (Kīlauea)

  • North Shore Pharmacy (Kīlauea)

  • The Kauaʻi Store (Kapaʻa)

  • KIKO (Kapaʻa)

  • Kauaʻi Museum (Līhuʻe)

  • Talk Story Bookstore (Hanapepe)

  • Kōkeʻe Museum (Kōkeʻe State Park)

Oʻahu

  • Native Books / Na Mea Hawaiʻi (Honolulu)

About the Author

Mehana Blaich Vaughan grew up where the districts of Haleleʻa and Koʻolau meet on the island of Kauaʻi. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, and the Sea Grant College Program and Hui ʻĀina Momona at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Mehana’s research and teaching focus on community relationships with natural resources, particularly in indigenous settings, as well as place-based education. Her home is on Kauaʻi with her husband, mother, and three children. Kaiāulu is her first book.

About Kaiāulu: Gathering Tides
Based on two decades of interviews with over sixty Hawaiian elders, leaders, and fishermen and women, Mehana Blaich Vaughan’s Kaiāulu: Gathering Tides is a deeply personal and affecting book about how community interacts with natural resources. The northeast coast of Kauaʻi, where Mehana was born and raised, can be a picturesque playground for tourists, but for centuries the catch from this local reef and the sharing of that food has helped sustain area families. What happens when these fishing families become increasingly unseen, many of them moving away due to global commodification and loss of access to their coastal land? This book skillfully explores a community’s enduring efforts to nurture respectful relationships with natural resources and perpetuate these practices for future generations. 

"Kaiāulu is a book of prayers, an exquisite inquiry into the nature of reciprocity and what it means to be human. Never have we needed the compassionate intelligence of Mehana Blaich Vaughan more. In the tradition of wisdom writers like Robin Wall Kimmerer and the storytelling magic of Louise Erdrich, we see a leader of the next generation on the page and in the world."
- Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Hour of Land

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