24 Apr 2024

Season 2 | Episode 3: Papa Tom Davis, From the Seas to the Stars (Rarotonga)

From Untold Pacific History, 6:00 am on 24 April 2024

Series ClassificationG (General Audiences) | Watch the series here

Papa Tom's quest for truth, history, and culture has taken him around the world and even out to space, but it was in Aotearoa and the Cook Islands that it all began...

The extraordinary Cook Islander, the first person from New Zealand and the Pacific to work for NASA, was one of the grandfathers of traditional vaka sailing in the Pacific, and who revolutionised economic reform in the Cook Islands. He is still little-known to generations of young Pacific people and to the New Zealand public in general.

This mini-doco biopic will look at the life of this extraordinary Cook Islander, who smashed new frontiers in space and the ocean in a life that spanned so many fields of work.

Papa Tom sits in front of a vaka

Papa Tom sits in front of a vaka Photo: Tikilounge Productions / Sunpix

NZ On Air

NZ On Air Photo: NZOA