09/14/2026
Meet this year’s visiting Wayfinders: Tuloutele Celeste Manuia Ha’o & Steven Tausiga
Utah Wayfinding Week is happening now, our events are free and open to the public check them out at saili.org/wayfinding-week to RSVP. We hope you can join!
Tuloutele Celeste is a Hawaiian-Sāmoan wayfinder, educator, designer, and storyteller from Hilo, Hawaiʻi. She trained under the late Pwo Navigator Kālepa Baybayan and co-navigated Hōkūleʻa on a historic journey that fulfilled her grandfather’s prophecy—returning to their village of Faleapuna, Sāmoa, “by way of sea and stars.”
At 17, Celeste was named Tuloutele, the Taupou of Faleapuna. Instead of remaining in the village, her grandfather directed her to return to Hawaiʻi, learn all she could, and one day teach their people. That calling guides her work today—blending ancestral intelligence with bold innovation to design learning experiences that reconnect ʻōiwi communities with identity, language, and place.
Steven Tausinga was born and Raised in Utah. He’s Tongan, Hawaiian and Japanese with a language background in Japanese and Hawaiian. He currently lives in Hau’ula on the Island of Oahu, but travels monthly for work as a musician.
He’s sailed throughout the Hawaiian Islands and around the Pacific on multiple voyaging canoes, including the Hokulea, Hikianalia and Iosepa. They used traditional methods of navigation, including reading the stars, the wind, the swells, the currents, the clouds and birds patterns.
Steven’s specialty is community outreach and building ties with the people in the places they visit, from small school visits, to dignitary meetings to large festivals. He’s known as one of the main musicians for the canoes and has performed around the world on behalf of his canoe families.
Check out this year’s lineup you won’t want to miss!