Transcript
The cedar-clad hull of the vaka has been completed. It's the first stage of a promise John Misky made to his grandmother back in 2003.
"That I would build a canoe, go to Auckland, sail it down and whatever money I collect along the way, that was going to be her gift towards the translation work."
His grandmother died in 2005 without seeing her legacy fulfilled but John Misky remained determined.
He's come a long way since then.
In 2009 while in Samoa he joined the Aiga Folau o Samoa, the Samoa Voyaging Society, where he was to learn his craft.
"I ended up on this voyage, 2010-11 and 12, we sailed all over the Pacific, into Hawai'i and across to San Francisco, down California."
The journey on Gaualofa, one of seven double-hulled va'a-tele in the fleet, continued on to Galapagos before returning via French Polynesia and on to the Pacific Arts Festival in Solomon Islands in July 2012.
John Misky says though he had the skills and experience, it wasn't until Christmas 2016 after being plagued by sleepless nights that his promise got back on track.
"I think grandma was pestering me to fulfill my promise. It came to a point where I couldn't contain it no more in terms of saying 'no, I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to do it' to the point where the only way I knew to be at peace with myself... is to do it."
In February this year, work got underway. Mr Misky says it takes a village to make a canoe.
"I've had a lot of help from the community, from council members like Izzy Ford and Mike Tana, to the Reverend elder Tui Sopoaga who was here nailing down the first board."
Reverend Sopoaga is also one of the community leaders involved in organising this year's Vaiaho o te Gagana Tokelau, Tokelau Language Week.
He says this year's theme, hold fast to the language of your ancestors because it is an inheritance from God, has a good fit with what John Misky is trying to achieve.
"John is one of the very persons that is trying his best to uplift the Tokelau language. And I think what he's talking about, about the canoe and the language, is very much what we wanted."
Meanwhile the Tokelau community and the New Zealand Bible Society have nearly completed the bible translation.
The Society's translation director Stephen Pattemore says the New Testament was completed and published in 2009.
He says work continues on the Old Testament.
"We have the whole Bible, Old and New Testament, that is the Protestant canon, is complete. It's not finalised yet, there's quite a bit of checking still to complete. We have several books of the Catholic Deuterocanon translated but that's still a distance to go there."
Mr Pattemore says the aim is to have the complete Protestant version ready for publication next year.
Mr Misky hopes his nautical efforts will help with toward printing the newly translated bible and to keeping the language and culture alive.
"If our language is like a canoe, then we need to sail it. We need to speak it. Not just Tokelauan but Maori, Samoan, Fijian. It's our cultural language that makes us who we are as a people."
John Misky aims to have the vaka sea-ready early in 2018 and will finalise plans for his fundraising voyage later in the year.
