Renovated volcano visitor center opens

Associated Press

VOLCANO, Hawai'i — Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park yesterday opened a revamped and updated visitors center that gives the public a quick overview of the environmental, historical and cultural features of the park.

Native Hawaiian elders Pua Kanakaole and Pele Honea offered chants to the volcano goddess Pele before removing the ceremonial maile lei stretched across the front door and leading dozens of visitors and park staff into the new facility.

Near the park entrance, the visitors center is typically the first stop for the 2.6 million people who visit Kilauea, Hawai'i's most popular tourist attraction, each year.

One of the visitor center's primary purposes has always been to provide the latest lava flow updates.

One new exhibit, an 18-foot wide by 14-foot tall diorama behind plate glass, depicts a realistic-looking native rainforest.

Built at a cost of $160,000, it re-creates dozens of native plants in almost microscopic detail, and plays the individual calls of native bird recorded in the wild nearby at the touch of a button.

Other exhibits explain ecological and environmental features of Hawai'i.

Visitors learn that, before the Polynesians arrived, new forms of plant life came to Hawai'i at the rate of one every 30,000 years, often from birds blown off course by hurricanes; that because there were no natural predators, successive generations of plants lost their thorns or other defense mechanisms; and that mosquitoes first arrived in 1826 in the water casks of a British whaling ship.

Throughout the entire process of planning and developing the new visitors center, a committee of a dozen Hawaiian elders met regularly with park officials to ensure that the indigenous culture was accurately presented.

A portrait of Pele by Arthur Johnson that hangs near the entrance was selected from 140 submitted by artists from throughout Hawai'i.

The visitors center first opened in the 1940s, according to park Superintendent Cynthia Orlando. Former exhibits dated from the 1970s, she said.

The renovated visitors center is one of the first steps leading up to the park's centennial in 2016, Orlando said.

"We want to minimize the footprint of modernization at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, but want to enhance the visitor experience even further as we approach our one hundredth year," Orlando said.