Kingston Images

Morning light bathes the verdant 2,000-foot cliffs of Molokai that once sealed the fate of thousands banished to Kalaupapa with Hansen's disease. "When we first came here, we looked at the mountains and saw a prison," recalled Paul, a longtime resident in 1980. "There was no beauty for us, only survival." Yet over decades, as treatment advanced and isolation laws were abolished, residents' perspective transformed along with their relationship to this dramatic landscape. The modest settlement homes nestled beneath the towering pali no longer represent confinement but community—"not like an institution anymore," as resident Ed described, "but like an old Hawaiian town" where sharing and aloha prevailed. This powerful juxtaposition of breathtaking natural beauty against a history of human suffering illuminates how Kalaupapa evolved from a place of exile into a sanctuary of resilience, where those once abandoned discovered profound connection with each other and their surroundings.