Mark Healey, left, and Mehana and Kohl Christensen attend the 2019 Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational opening ceremony in Waimea Bay on the North Shore of O'ahu, Hawaii.
Finding family on Hawaii’s North Shore
Photographs by Brown W. Cannon III
Story by Yahya Salem, CNN
Published January 21, 2024
Mark Healey, left, and Mehana and Kohl Christensen attend the 2019 Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational opening ceremony in Waimea Bay on the North Shore of O'ahu, Hawaii.
To photographer Brown Cannon, O’ahu’s North Shore represents both a journey and a destination, and as much a sanctuary for the surfers who board there as it as a home — or homecoming.
Stretching along some seven miles of enchanting topography, the shore offers up a transcendent experience that seamlessly weaves the ocean’s ethereality into a communal, timeless sense of belonging.
“Once you have that feeling for the kind of power, of riding waves on the North Shore, it translates directly to the core of who you are,” Cannon told CNN. “You know that you can’t go to many other places and have those same feelings. You keep coming back for it.”
The North Shore attracts more than 3 million visitors each year. Surfers are drawn to test their abilities in taming “perfectly glassy waves,” as Cannon described them. Pacific waters roaring against the shores of Banzai Pipeline and Waimea Bay can reach staggering heights north of 30 feet.
Though he’s now primarily based in Bend, Oregon, Cannon’s familial roots in Hawaii are about a century deep. On assignment for global brands and renowned publications, his photography career has taken him to more than 50 countries, yet whether it’s horse riding across the Mongolian Steppe or sailing through Arctic glaciers, nothing quite compares to his annual trips back to the North Shore, Cannon said.
Cannon said he cherishes the mutual embrace he’s shared with the North Shore community — the island of O’ahu is dubbed “the Gathering Place” — ever since he was a child. It’s with this in mind that he created his portrait of the North Shore, a 275-page photo book that exalts the people and the place.
“One of my biggest challenges when I’m in Hawai‘i is choosing between surfing and shooting,” Cannon wrote in “North.” “Like so many of the people pictured here, I love my water time as much as I love anything, and that love has caused me to miss many great photographs.”
Still, the scenes captured in Cannon’s photos embody that love while conveying power, pride and passion: The way his subjects hold their surfboards — and their families close; the way they gaze into the mighty waters, reflecting their own colorful spirits.
“It’s captivating,” said Cannon. “The light and the color of the water, and the way the land, the rocky lava shoreline in places, meets that color of blue.”
“Surfing drove me to start the project,” Cannon continued. “But underneath it all, it was a way for me to get to know this place better through these people that I’ve admired.”
The North Shore’s surfing communities comprise natives whose surfing ancestries date back to at least the 12th-century, foreigners who came to O’ahu and couldn’t fathom abandoning the waves and beaches, as well the adrenaline junkies and tourists visiting from all over the world.
The coastline emerged as a tourist destination in the late 19th century after the industrialist Benjamin Dillingham inaugurated a railway between Honolulu and Hale’iwa, his newly erected hotel on the North Shore. Over the years, Dillingham’s resort became a beachside attraction to residents and tourists alike, leading to the establishment of a new settlement of the same name.
Today, tourism is a lucrative industry in O’ahu. According to Hawaii’s Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, the total visitor spending in O’ahu in 2022 exceeded $8.5 billion.
Surfing plays a vital role in attracting visitors from all over the world. The North Shore hosts several prestigious surfing competitions annually, including the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, which generates tens of millions of dollars for the local economy.
A notable figure commemorated in “North” as an embodiment of the shore’s community, as Cannon described it, is Peter Cole. Cole, who passed away last year at the age of 91, was a Southern California native lured to the North Shore waves in the 1950s by surf films and magazines.
According to Cannon, Cole’s profoundly intimate relationship with the North Shore waves — one that had him surfing well into old age — was an inspiration.
“When the annals of big-wave surfing at Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach are written, his name will be prominent,” Cannon writes of Cole in the book.
To Cannon, surfing itself is both a solitary activity and inherently communal. Surfers may be individuals on their boards, but they are often members of a greater “lineup” in the water, collectively targeting the same wave. This sense of common purpose is what binds the community together.
“Relationships are built in the waves,” said Cannon. “I really believe experiences in the waves can make you a better person and can translate directly to how you are on land.”
“‘Ohana” — a Hawaiian term which roughly translates to “family” — is what anchors the book to the essence of the North Shore. Surfing is “multigenerational,” according to Cannon. Knowledge of the waters is passed down from the elders to the young.
Cannon recalls being called “uncle” by kids who are not his nieces or nephews, and describes how a child surfing their first wave is a triumph for the entire North Shore family, a family where water is thicker than blood.
“All the images and stories assembled here in one place, between these pages, this is my family.”
“North,” published by Damiani, is now available.