Look up! Have you seen Duke Kahanamoku looking over Freshie Village?

There’s a new addition to Freshwater Village and it celebrates an important person in the area’s history.

In the summer of 1914-15 while visiting Australia, Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku fashioned a surf board from sugar pine, and demonstrated surfing to locals at Freshwater Beach. This moment popularised surfing in Australia. 

Thanks to this iconic moment in history, Freshwater Beach is now a National Surfing Reserve.

To celebrate its surfing heritage, a 3 metre photograph of Viola Hartman, a U.S Olympian on the shoulders of Duke Kahanamoku has been installed to brighten Freshwater Village. Look up and you’ll now see Duke and Viola watching over Freshie.

This photo installation was the brainchild of the building owner Frank Minnici, who had found the special photograph and approached Council for support.

For Freshwater locals, they’ll know Frank as a staunch advocate for the suburb. He has been championing to reignite the local village and was even involved in the successful call to restore Freshwater’s name from Harbord.

With Council’s help, the original image was sourced from the United States, redesigned to be 3 metres tall and then installed, bringing a piece of local history to the village.

If you would like to explore more local history, our Library’s History Hub has over 27,000 items including photographs, recordings, maps and more.