Utah Wayfinding Week 2026: Looking Back on Our Voyage

This month, we hosted our 2nd Annual Utah Wayfinding Week, featuring visiting wayfinders Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Haʻo and Steven Tausinga. The week included an opening ceremony with our youth navigators presenting an ʻava ceremony, school workshops and visits, a youth planetarium day, public planetarium evenings, and a closing ceremony where we celebrated the week and heard from our visiting wayfinders before they returned to Hawaiʻi.

This year, we expanded our efforts to provide more learning opportunities on wayfinding for youth. Although Pasifika youth growing up in Utah live far from the ocean, our culture is rooted in the ancestral knowledge that allowed our people to navigate and explore the world's largest body of water, the Pacific Ocean. Wayfinding is what distinguishes us as a people, and reconnecting our youth to it helps them carry that legacy forward, wherever they call home.

Highlights from Utah Wayfinding Week

We kicked off Wayfinding Week with a youth wayfinding basics training, where participants learned directly from our visiting wayfinders, Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Haʻo and Steven Tausinga, so they could assist them during school visits later in the week. Afterward, the youth prepared a special welcome ceremony for our visiting wayfinders, featuring an ʻava welcome ceremony conducted and choreographed by our youth, Leilina and Tavai Tilo.

During the ceremony, we also honored local community partners, including Kipuka Ola, the Utah Minority Bar Association, faculty from the University of Utah Center for Pasifika Indigenous Knowledges, and Haumana 'O Pasifika Program and the Utah Marshallese Association.

Youth Planetarium Day 

Middle school students from Pacific Heritage Academy, Mana Academy, and Bennion Jr. High took a field trip to the Clark Planetarium, where they explored the Star Compass and learned the basics of Oceanic wayfinding, including how navigators read the stars to determine course and directions. 

Tōloa Rising: Navigating the Night’s Sky

On Thursday and Friday evenings, we hosted Tōloa Rising, a public event in which the Hawaiian and Sāmoan Star Compasses illuminated the dome of the Clark Planetarium, marking a historic return to ancestral skies, stories, and navigation. Guided by Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Haʻo and Steven Tausinga, attendees discovered the basics of Oceanic wayfinding as they charted a course from Utah to the heart of the Pacific.

Charter School Visits

Our visiting wayfinders spent the mornings with Pacific Heritage Academy and Mana Academy, teaching students how to use the star compass for navigation and the different parts of the canoe and how they work.

Wayfinding Basics for Educators Training

On Saturday morning, educators gathered at the Sorenson Unity Center to learn from Tuloutele and Steven how Oceanic wayfinders read the stars, waves, winds, and other environmental signs to determine course and direction. The training explored wayfinding as a way of understanding Pacific knowledge systems and building meaningful connections to culture, place, and identity for classroom and other learning settings.

Umusaga: A Voyage Made Ready

Umusaga is a celebration held after the building of a new home or canoe. Fittingly, we closed Utah Wayfinding Week that Saturday evening at Pacific Heritage Academy with an umusaga honoring the preparation, learning, and community that carry a voyage, and a people, home.

The evening of talanoa featured Utah Representative Laufou Jacob Fitisemanu Jr., who traced the story of how early Sāmoans came to call Utah home in the 19th century. Guest navigators Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Haʻo and Steven Tausinga then delivered keynote addresses, with Tuloutele sharing her ancestral and personal voyage across the ocean and through identity, and Steven sharing his journey in wayfinding and teaching the audience a traditional Sāmoan song celebrating navigation.

The evening concluded with special performances. Mālama o Mataitoa presented a taualuga dance honoring the legend of the tuiga and its ties to wayfinding. Throughout the week, the group worked with community knowledge holders to make several tuiga, both for their performance and as gifts for our visiting navigators. The youth of Taualuga Productions also performed several siva dance numbers to traditional Sāmoan songs. 

Fa’afetai Tele Lava, Thank You to Our Partners

Utah Wayfinding Week is made possible by our wonderful staff, volunteers, and generous sponsors. Their contributions allowed us to offer these events to the public free of charge. Thank you to our wonderful village for their helping hands and open hearts to make this year’s events happen.

If you would like to support next year’s Utah Wayfinding Week, please email us at admin@saili.org.