Master toolsmith Jim Wester of Waldron Island, Washington is teaming up with the traditional carvers of the Waa'gey arts and crafts project in Yap State, Micronesia

Wester has spent over two and half decades creating high quality custom tools and blades in the Pacific Northwest. He is now crafting specialized Adze blades for the Waa'gey carvers in order to improve the speed and safety of their work.

Adzes are a traditional tool used for carving or smoothing rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. They are most often used for squaring up logs, or for hollowing out timber. Long ago islanders in the Central Pacific used shell, coral, and sometimes even stones, for the blades of their woodened handled adzes.

Contact with the Spanish in the sixteenth century saw the introduction of metal blades. Still, the specific size, shape, and material requirements for blades that would work within the handle and use parameters set by the islanders necessitated local modifications and re-configuration of the metal.

Carvers in the Waa'gey canoe project still employ scrap metal -such as old truck suspension springs- to make the blades, but are strictly limited by the limitations of these materials. Wester, who has been making customized blades for traditional and modern carvers around the world since 1987, is helping to change that.

Late in 2012, the US-based charity Habele ordered several large adze blades from Wester's North Bay Forge and donated them to the Waa'gey program. "The blade are by far the best quality the guys here have ever seen," explained Larry Raigetal who organizes the Waa'gey sailing canoe operation in Yap.

Working with Waa'gey and the Habele donors, Wester is now embarking on a much larger work order. He is special ordering high quality steel as the carvers in Yap provide him with exact details of the size, shape, curvature and weight they need for their adze blades to sync with the handles they'll create for them.

"This is pretty exciting," said Wester about the partnership with Waa'gey Canoe Carvers. "Boat building [here in the Pacific Northwest] is actually what got me started in blacksmithing."
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Loom weaving of traditional skirts is a labor-intensive process that holds special significance for women in the Caroline Islands (Micronesia).

While modern materials have mostly replaced the traditional banana and pandanus threads, the basic process persists unchanged. It requires skillful use of one’s body weight to tense the loom through a back strap and stretch delicate threads between a pair of bars.

Volunteers with Habele, a US-based charity, have provided spools of cotton and polyester thread to a consortium of women’s groups in Yap State Micronesia, hoping to help them pass those specialized skills and sense of heritage to a new generation.


The gift was presented through Regina Raigetal. She serves both as a Habele Director as well as with the Yap-based “Waa’gey.” Attending the presentation was Nils Winkler, CEO of Yapital, a European-based electronic payments company. Yapital donated the polyester and cotton fabric, as part of its ongoing partnership with Habele to support K-12 students across Yap State. The materials will help master weavers partner with high school aged young women who are themselves seeking to master the loom techniques.

Project coordinator Waa’gey is a community-based organization that uses traditional skills to confront the social, economic and environmental challenges faced by the people of Micronesia’s most remote Outer Islands. Waa’gey has made headlines for its revival of dugout sailing canoes in Yap State, but the group also pursues projects centered on skills traditionally practiced by women.


Ongoing efforts include preservation of weaving of so-called “every day” lava lavas, as well as the revival of the highly specialized loom weaving of “Machi” skirts, a specialized type of lava-lava that serves as an important ceremonial textile.

Acclaimed anthropologist Dr. Donald Rubinstein has explained the significance of this art form:

“… the machi holds a unique place, as the only textile which is never worn as everyday dress, but serves exclusively ceremonial functions, and has a special relationship to traditional island chieftainship... Although no longer used as regular chiefly tribute, nor at the inauguration of the island chief or the coming-of-age ceremony for young men, the Fais machi today retains two important cultural functions, as a burial shroud for senior men, and as the highest form of gift.  Both of these functions rest on the preeminent status of the machi as the most valuable object of local manufacture.”

A photo blog documenting of Waag’ey’s progress is here and more information on the Habele Listening Tour can be found here.

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A Midwestern family has renewed their support for a Micronesian girl attending a small private school thousands of miles away in the State of Yap.

Orpha Hapdei is a seventh grade student at Saint Mary's School in Colonia. Her family is from the Atoll of Ulithi, a remote outer island of Yap, Micronesia.

Orpha began attending St. Mary’s in 2011, through the Leona Peterson (1926-2011) Memorial K-12 Scholarship. The scholarship pays for three-fourths of her tuition and expenses at the private school in Yap’s capitol city “Colonia.” The money was raised entirely by the descendants of Mrs. Peterson. This last Christmas, the family committed to do the same for the 2012-13 school year.

Leona Peterson was native of Waterloo, Iowa. She led the Department of Aging in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) during the late 1970s and early 80s. At that time Micronesia was one part of the larger US-administered TTPI which spanned the Central Pacific. In the 1980s, the region transitioned to political independence. Today, Yap and its outer islands comprise one of the four Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).

Following her death, Leona's son Paul Peterson sought a way to remember his mother's legacy by supporting the islanders whom she spoke so lovingly of. He reached out to Habele, a small US-based charity that provides scholarships to low-income children across Micronesia The group also funds after school projects and donates books to students and classroom teachers.

Peterson gathered financial commitments from family members living across Missouri and Iowa. "As the holidays approach this year I was struck with a notion. I would like to keep the named scholarship going year over year,' says Peterson. "To that end instead of sending out gift baskets to family and friends I'll make a donation to Habele in their name for the Leona Peterson scholarship fund."

Habele worked with educators and local volunteers in Yap to select Orpha as the initial recipient of the Peterson Scholarship. According to her sixth grade teacher, Molly Walag, Orpha earned a GPA of 3.57 for the 2011-12 school year. Her mother proudly mailed a copy of the girl's honor roll certificate to Habele and the Petersons, who've sent a post-Christmas check to Habele for next school year’s tuition.


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