In New Zealand, Cade Halkyard gained a new perspective on the world.

And he’s got a tattoo — a topographic map of Rarotoka, an island in New Zealand — to show it.

The tattoo, located on the front of Halkyard’s left shoulder, is his reminder to take a step back from the materialistic culture of the United States and to appreciate the earth and all it has to offer, he said.

”That was the first step into adulthood for me,” Halkyard said. “I had never really been anywhere before. I had feelings that I wanted to remember this trip somehow.”

Halkyard, a senior photography major, spent two and a half months in New Zealand during his senior year of high school. Every two days he traveled to a different place, learning about the culture of the native people as well as doing community service.

The last week of the trip, he said, was the most special to him.

Halkyard and his traveling companions took a helicopter to an island named Rarotoka, owned by a man named Stewart. The island had no electricity, and they had limited food. It was their job to get rid of the spiny, non-native and invasive shrub called gorse.

”We had these huge gloves on,” Halkyard said, laughing. “We were all kind of going through the same pain, so we were all happy.”

Halkyard recalls one morning when he woke up at 4:30 a.m., long before anyone else was up. He grabbed his camera and trekked out to the lighthouse.

“It was very liberating to look out into the ocean and to look across towards the United States and everywhere,” Halkyard said. “I felt the most alive I’ve ever felt in my life.”

Out of respect for the Maori, an indigenous group of New Zealand, in which men coming of age receive a tattoo, Halkyard decided to wait to get his tattoo of the island Rarotoka until he got home.

Stewart gave him permission to get the tattoo back home. He ripped the page with the drawing of the map out of his journal and gave it to Halkyard.

“It was kind of him passing his culture onto me in a way,” Halkyard said.

Published on September 30, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Gigi: gantonel@syr.edu