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Sunset above the dark lava landscape at Kanaio on southeast Maui

Maui History Series · Southeast Maui

Kanaio Coast: Trails, Dryland Farms and a Living Cultural Landscape

Kanaio is not an empty lava shore. Fishing settlements, dryland fields, trails, ranches, military use, and forest restoration each belong to its history.

Follow the coast through time

Photo: Forest & Kim Starr source (opens in a new tab) · CC BY 3.0 US license (opens in a new tab) · cropped and resized

A coast connected from makai to mauka

Lava did not separate shoreline life from upland fields

Across the ahupuaʻa of Kanaio, Kaloʻi, Kaunuahane, and Papaka Kai, Native Hawaiian communities linked fishing settlements with dryland fields through coastal and mauka-makai trails. Families fished, gathered shoreline foods, used brackish wells and submarine springs, and cultivated ʻuala, uhi, and dryland kalo.

Later ranching, military training, roads, and conservation changed how this land was used. Those layers did not erase the cultural landscape beneath them, and they do not make archaeological or protected land available for casual exploration.

4 AHUPUAʻAKanaio, Kaloʻi, Kaunuahane, and Papaka Kai
1840sHoapili-era road work and expanding ranch use
1965National Guard training area established
1,514 ACRESKanaio Natural Area Reserve

Settlement, farming and trails

Communities worked a dry landscape through connection and knowledge

Coast, kīpuka, upland fields, and paths formed one system rather than isolated dots on a modern map.

A paved road rising and falling through dry Kanaio vegetation
The modern road is one transportation layer across a coast long connected by Hawaiian trails, later government work, and ranch routes. This image is not an access guarantee. Photo: Forest & Kim Starr source (opens in a new tab) · CC BY 3.0 US license (opens in a new tab) · cropped and resized
Dryland habitat and volcanic slopes inside Kanaio Natural Area Reserve
Kanaio Natural Area Reserve protects a remnant native dryland forest. It is protected habitat, not an invitation to leave authorized routes. Photo: Forest & Kim Starr source (opens in a new tab) · CC BY 3.0 US license (opens in a new tab) · cropped and resized
Broad locator map highlighting the historic Honuaʻula moku on Maui
A broad moku locator provides regional context. It is not a boundary survey or a map of cultural and archaeological sites. Map: Sn1per, based on Hawaiʻi government data source (opens in a new tab) · public domain license (opens in a new tab) · resized without cropping

Fishing settlements and fields formed one lived landscape

State research documents shoreline communities at Alaha-Wahene and Waiailio, with other residences distributed along the coast. In the 1920s, Winslow Metcalf Walker recorded fifteen house foundations in the former Waiailio settlement landscape, together with pens, canoe sheds, and enclosures.

Coastal ala kahakai connected settlements, while ala piʻi joined the shore to upland cultivation. Older-soil kīpuka inside younger lava created valuable planting ground. These relationships matter more than turning any one feature into a visitor stop.

Hoapili-era work added to older trail systems

Governor Hoapili ordered coastal road work in the 1840s to connect Honuaʻula and Kaupō. State assessment says the route may roughly follow an older coastal ala loa; Piʻilani Highway may likewise correspond with older inland travel.

Calling the surviving route only a recreational “King’s Highway” collapses multiple periods into one nickname. Older Hawaiian paths, nineteenth-century government work, ranch routes, and later roads overlap.

  1. Traditional era

    Coast and uplands work together

    Fishing communities, dryland agriculture, and trails connect makai and mauka.

  2. 1840s

    Road and ranch layers expand

    Hoapili-era work crosses older travel country as cattle ranching grows.

  3. 1920s

    Waiailio is documented

    Walker records foundations and working features at the former shoreline settlement.

Ranch, military use and restoration

Twentieth-century impacts changed the land—and its management

Ranching, live-fire training, unexploded ordnance, wildfire, invasive species, and conservation remain connected parts of the modern record.

Ranching became the dominant nineteenth-century economy

Cattle ranching expanded from the 1840s. Kahikinui, ʻUlupalakua, Haleakalā, and Kaupo Ranch grazed land within what later became the Kanaio Forestry and Wildlife Area.

This is a ranching story rather than a major plantation-sugar story. Grazing changed vegetation, fences, water use, labor, and movement across the landscape.

World War II training left a long safety legacy

The U.S. Army and Marine Corps used portions of Kanaio for live-fire training during World War II. In 1965, the Hawaiʻi Army National Guard established the approximately 4,707-acre Kanaio Training Area; later military cleanup documents define a somewhat broader munitions-response site, so the figures should not be treated as one identical boundary.

High-explosive exercises were permanently suspended in 1981 and the site was inactive by 2003. Investigations and removal actions followed, but posted military-safety fencing and marked-route rules remain essential. Never touch suspected ordnance.

A protected dry forest becomes the next chapter

Kanaio Natural Area Reserve was established in 1991. Its 1,514 acres protect remnant dryland forest and rare species within a broader management landscape affected by invasive ungulates, wildfire, illegal off-road travel, and past military use.

Restoration is not a return to an untouched past. It is active stewardship in a landscape with continuing Native Hawaiian cultural meaning and several centuries of documented change.

  1. World War II

    Live-fire training begins

    Army and Marine Corps use introduces a military-impact layer.

  2. 1965

    National Guard training area established

    A formal training area follows earlier wartime use.

  3. 1981

    High-explosive exercises stop

    Military investigations and removal work continue after training changes.

  4. 1991

    Natural Area Reserve established

    Dryland forest protection becomes a formal State priority.

What guests can understand

Read the visible landscape without treating it as open ground

Public roads and authorized overlooks reveal history without entering cultural sites, protected habitat, military-safety zones, or private property.

  • KīpukaPockets of older surface and soil help explain dryland cultivation amid younger lava.
  • Road layersModern pavement crosses country once connected by coastal and mauka-makai trails.
  • Fence linesThey can mark ranch, conservation, private-property, or military-safety boundaries; obey all of them.
  • Dry forestProtected remnant habitat records both environmental loss and active restoration.

Related Maui history & tours

Continue with the places and experiences that share this chapter’s roads, water, communities, or working landscapes.

Continue the series

Follow Honuaʻula from ranch slopes to lava coast

Upcountry Ranches and Keoneʻōʻio explain adjacent economic, transportation, and conservation layers.

Maui History Series Upcountry Ranches Paniolo, pasture and changing land
Photo: Forest & Kim Starr source (opens in a new tab) · CC BY 3.0 US license (opens in a new tab) · cropped and resized
Maui History Series Keoneʻōʻio / La Pérouse Bay A Hawaiian bay behind the foreign name
Photo: Harrias source (opens in a new tab) · CC BY-SA 3.0 license (opens in a new tab) · cropped and resized; derivative shared under CC BY-SA 3.0

Research notes

Sources & further reading

This chapter relies on official State cultural, natural-resource, military, County storm, and place-name records. It omits sensitive-site locations and dates access guidance to August 20, 2026.