Wayfinding in the Westfjords

By Henry Fletcher & Jay Simpson

Wayfinding in the Westfjords 978-9935-531-00-1
Áttaðu þig á Vestfjörðum 978-9935-531-04-9
20 cm x 25 cm (~8 in x 10 in), 200 pages, English or Icelandic.

Wayfinding in the Westfjords is our main book and is offered as a poetic celebration of place, combining rich visual imagery with reflective storytelling on different wayfinding practices, including wild-walking and camping, drystone-cairn construction, tree planting, cold and hot water immersion, foraging, ceremony, storytelling, and creative written/visual response. Collectively, wayfinding practices provide a pathway for readers to orient themselves to human and nonhuman counterparts as you walk historic trails through the wild land- and seascapes of the Westfjords—virtually or otherwise!

Wayfinding in the Westfjords is a diligent tangle of the practical and the magical. Visually sumptuous, it also has some hard yards of stomped wisdom secreted within it. There are clues here about what it means to be claimed by a place. It made me whistle through my teeth and start thinking about a journey north

— Dr. Martin Shaw, Author of Smoke Hole: Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass

What is Wayfinding?
Wayfinding is both a process of navigation by which we locate ourselves in a landscape and determine the way forward, and a collection of practices for finding our way metaphorically in relation to ourselves and the planet. Practices include wild-walking and camping, drystone cairn construction, tree planting, cold and hot water immersion, foraging, storytelling, ritual, ceremony, and creative response. Each provides a pathway towards an ecology of mind bedded within the expansive terrestrial and marine landscapes of the Westfjords.

Embrace this book and these wayfinding practices to bring you closer to the land and sea, and to your human and nonhuman counterparts, as you make your way.