Canoe Culture

Jeff Waia, Culture Teacher at Tagai State College is heading up the construction process of the canoe, which is modelled on the traditional practices of Torres Strait Island clans.

As a component of the developing ‘Traditional Language and Culture’ curriculum, Tagai State College has engaged the services of key community members to build a Dug-Out Canoe. The boys not only learn to build the canoe, but to sail and hunt using the canoes.

The canoe wood was sourced bare from a small community in Papua New Guinea and has been painstakingly created into an example of Torres Strait history and art.