Amid tribal songs and a cheering crowd, Takirirangi Smith launched a 20-foot canoe into the Thea Foss Waterway. He paddled the cedar craft adorned with Maori carvings with apparent ease.

Not bad considering the canoe was still a log on Thursday.

Smith spent the past five days carving the craft outside the Foss Waterway Seaport building, and the Maori man’s labors became a popular attraction for those passing by or waiting in line to board the Class A ships.

And if festival visitors enjoyed watching Smith carve the canoe, just wait three years.

Tom Cashman, the executive director of the Foss Waterway Seaport, plans on bringing a celebration of canoes to the area in 2011. Twenty-four Pacific cultures, like Tonga, Fiji, Hawaii and Japan, will be represented.

“The canoes will tell the story of those cultures,” Cashman said. “And we see Takirirangi’s work as a way of introducing the concept of that event.”

Shortly before it entered the water, Smith circled the craft and blessed it in Maori. He also thanked those who helped with the carving of the canoe. And then Medicine Creek tribal members offered a blessing and gave ceremonial permission for the canoe to enter the water.

“This is historically their waterway,” said John Smith, a Skokomish tribal member who helped Takirirangi Smith carve the canoe. “So we asked their permission in a respectful way,

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The Maori and the others carving were a constant outside of the Foss Waterway Seaport building, and he routinely stopped to answer questions from passers-by. He often had cedar chips stuck on his shirt and sprinkled throughout his hair.

Cashman, who brought Smith from New Zealand to Tacoma just for the event, stood near the water’s edge and smiled brightly when the canoe first entered the water.