CANCELED - Nigel Foster Presentation and Potluck

CANCELED - Nigel Foster Presentation and Potluck

Nigel will present on his recent adventure in Indonesia, when he kayaked around the Heart of Toba, Samosir Island, in the World’s largest caldera lake. Bring a dish to share, assuming the pandemic allows us to do that sort of thing.

Headhunters, cannibals, and jungle guarded the location of Sumatra’s Lake Toba until 1852 when it was finally seen by a European explorer and drawn on the map. A surprise, for Lake Toba is the biggest caldera lake in the world. When the super-volcano Toba erupted some 74,000 years ago it was with an explosion equivalent to 2,800 times that of the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption in USA. It left a hole now partially filled by a lake sixty miles long and eighteen miles wide. with steep caldera walls.

Nigel joined an Indonesian kayaking expedition to explore the lake, circling the volcanic rebound island of Samosir. Known as the Heart of Toba, Samosir was once home to two hundred often-warring Batak kings. The object of the trip was to learn about Batak culture, with its traditional architecture, weaving, and dancing. He heard how convicts were once eaten alive, seasoned with the same ingredients still used in the spicy sambals. Huge dugout canoes, solus bolon once used for trade and war slipped from favor during Dutch colonial rule, but solo dugouts are still widely used for fishing.

Learning from the son of a famous Batak poet, of the family of wife-givers to the Rajas Sisingamangaraja, Nigel began to understand what Lake Toba means to Toba Batak. The talk will illustrate some of the aspects Nigel found notable, but he elaborates within his book, Heart of Toba. You’ll find more at heartoftoba.com.

Potluck starts at 6:00 pm, presentation at 7:00pm.

Location
Tacoma Program Center
2302 N 30th St, Tacoma, WA 98403
Great Hall

Roster