Upcoming Events: 

Talk and Book Signing with Steve Thomas

Wednesday, October 7; 6:30 pm Wine and Cheese, 7:00 pm presentation of The Last Navigator, oral traditions, including seafaring, in Micronesia

Join us at the Lyme Public Hall at 249 Hamburg Road, Lyme, CT to hear author and adventurer Steve Thomas tell the story of master Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug, whose legendary knowledge of traditional wayfaring techniques and passion for keeping these practices alive made him a cultural hero. This richly illustrated lecture will take us into a world of ocean navigation largely unknown to the West, a world in which the traditional navigator’s only directional tools are the stars, the ocean swells and the flight paths of birds.

In 1983 and 1984 Steve Thomas spent eleven months on Satawal Island and in the Western Carolines as an apprentice to Mau Piailug, then one of the last paliuw, captains fully initiated in the Talk of Navigation, the closely guarded, ancient practices around reading the cosmos and the seas. Steve chronicled his experiences and the navigational techniques in the book The Last Navigator, first published in 1987, and a documentary film of the same title for PBS in 1988. Now some forty years on Steve has updated the stories with a new generation of Satawalese islanders and researchers in the revised and fully illustrated edition of The Last Navigator.

Steve is a lively and engaging speaker using his own now-historic photos from his time on this remote Pacific island. This past winter he spoke to a full house at the Explorers Club in NYC and they had this to say: “Steve Thomas’s presentation… was outstanding — a rare blend of true adventure and cultural preservation. He brought the audience into the world of Mau Piailug and traditional Pacific wayfinding with warmth, humor, and real respect for the knowledge behind it. Even for people who don’t sail, the story is gripping: mentorship, humility, and a vanishing body of expertise kept alive through one remarkable navigator. The room was fully engaged throughout, and the talk left people wanting to read the book and learn more.”

About Steve: It was in 1989, in between research trips to the Alaskan Arctic for a second Adventure book and film, that Steve got a call from the series publicist, who also worked for This Old House, whose producers were conducting a nationwide search for a new host and he spent 14 years as host, from 1989 through 2003, during which the show rose to the top of PBS’s list of most-watched ongoing series. He was honored with a 1997-1998 Daytime Emmy Award and received a total of nine nominations for Outstanding Service Show Host and the show received 16 Emmys. In 2022, Steve received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy for his work.

**To register for this event please email info@lymepublichall.org