Midway: Government Island
You can read the history of Midway from various sources on the internet and elsewhere, this is a summary and reflects my curiosities. Midway has been a government story from the time it was claimed by Captain Middlebrooks in 1859 and it became a US Territory well before Hawaii
Middlebrooks (who went by Captain Brooks) was cruising around in a ship under the Hawaiian king but when he spotted an island far from Oahu, covered with thick guano his commercial instinct kicked in and he claimed it for the US under the guano act rather than for the Kingdom of Hawaii US US territory to this day, never a part of the state of Hawaii
In the 1870s there was a failed attempt to dredge a channel into the lagoon for ships. The number of ships that wrecked and sunk of the NW islands is both great and tragic. Money was the barrier that stopped the early costly project. Early the next century, a few marines were installed to keep the Japanese feather hunters from further decimating the albatross.
The next historic group was the Commercial Pacific Cable Company who laid telephone lines along the floor of the ocean to connect the western world to the eastern world, North America to Asia . The cable lines met at Midway where the golden spike was driven, so to speak. These folks built several buildings to serve them from 1909 -1913 that are still standing, infused with the charming building materials of the day – asbestos and lead paint.
The dredging was completed later and both Sand Island and Eastern Island became little more than runways with housing between them. Spit Island Asia . Travel to Midway at that time was for the elite few at the top of the food chain, extremely expensive.
Nearly caught up to WWII, a story we don’t need to retell here. The movie Battle of Midway shows the strategies that turned the war in our favor in June 1942, six months after both Midway and Pearl Harbor were attacked by Japan
Both radar and Loran were developed during that war and Midway was a strategic location through the Korean, Vietnamese, and cold wars. The classic Loran towers were finally replaced by recon satellites and in 1987, Midway was relegated to a historic site in the National registry. Enter the National Wildlife Refuge system, considered an overlay system still under the supervision of the US Navy. The Navy facility closed in 1993 with the responsibility to clean up the "environmental contamination."
Perhaps to appeal to the upper classes once again, a private company became interested making Midway a resort, some say a personal resort for the executives. I heard this story from another civilian volunteer.
Midway was turned over to the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in tandem with Midway Phoenix (MP). The Navy asked the new tennants to mark every building they wanted to keep and removed every other building before leaving in 1996.
So, Midway Phoenix retained many buildings to be restored with the fancy resort in mind. For some reason, they also retained old hangers and the old cable company buildings that were in need of repair or replacement already. They paved roads and converted Charlie barracks into suites but Bravo is decrepit. What had been the naval brig was converted into an internet café called the Empire Café across from the dining hall that served ordinary folks cafeteria food. They somehow got clearance to build a restaurant intended to serve French cuisine right on the beach. But Fish and Wildlife was there and their agenda was to maintain, and further, Midway as a wildlife refuge. They would not bend the rules and make exceptions for the clients of Midway Phoenix, not enough for them to make huge profits. MP became frustrated and left, saying they lost money on the deal. Apparently then, as now, that is all corporations have to say to get out of their commitments.
Fish and Wildlife ended up with buildings they had no need for and no budget for either remodel or demolition. The economic downfall the US US Phoenix
In June 2006, the entire chain of the Northwest Islands became the Northwest Islands Marine National Monument in an effort to protect the fragile coral reef system. Stick with me here, this Monument includes both the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge (every island except Midway Atoll) and the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, still a separate refuge,and the surrounding waters.
A year later the new name was added to honor the Hawaiian culture who has traditionally cared for the coral reef ecosystem as critical to preservation of life and a way of life. The new name is Papahanaumokuakea, surely a mouthful unless a little attempt is made to learn and understand it - the basis for respect, I might add. (pah-pah-Ha-now-moh-koo-Ah-keh-ah).
Papa is earth mother, hanau is birth, and moku is surrounded, as by water. Akea is wide, and since adjectives follow nouns, it can be interpreted as the wide fertile woman giving birth to the wide stretch of islands. Typical with Hawaiian language there is always more than one meaning and no new name would neglect this truth. Wakea references the sky father and this would add the meaning that the birth is of the early male and female creators. The word rolls off the tongue (just try!) there is a w sound between moku and akea. The additional meaning is that this creation of the widely stretching islands are beneath the benevolent sky. (you can google the name yourself)
My off-beat idea
What came to my mind faced with the dilemma of overwhelming work needing to be done, and knowing the song well that there are no funds, is that archaic system of using prisoners to work. Rather than a constant drain on resources, why not bring them in and train them (duh!) in some practical skills that could one day make them employable? They could not escape – where would they go? Is that solution somehow inhumane? Make sure they have good respirators!
It is clear we still make and maintain large ships, I saw them at Pearl Harbor. I would venture to guess men are trained to run them, maneuver them. Is it politically correct to have buildings falling down, expensive equipment that is still usable just sitting there ready to rust away because it would cost something to barge it? How about an enforcement ship that runs back and forth along Papahanaumokuakea to enforce the no fishing zones and stop in and take a load of materials away (that the prisoners have labored to remove).
Why not have a multi-department committee working on solutions here rather than redundantly arguing about lack of money and budgets.
Is this as far-fetched?
The finances are tragic and that is the reason short term volunteers pay their own way to work on behalf of nature. Healthy baby-boomers are coming into retirement age and the phrase I hear is a desire “to give back.” Maybe that is valid as baby boomers are the spawn of WWII, me included. What kind of projects will make them willing to pay their own way to Midway and work, besides the bird count? They are a resource being seriously looked at right now.
