REMOTE POSSIBILITIES

THE NAME ‘ICELAND’ seemed misleading when I visited in summer. ‘Waterland’ was more like it. On the Westfjords peninsula, which juts from northwest Iceland like a claw, water was everywhere. It cascaded in silvery filaments down green mountainsides. It rushed in streams alongside, and occasionally over gravel roads. It floated in clouds like thought bubbles above slate-blue fjords.

So it seemed appropriate that my companion Jason and I should begin our Westfjords road trip at the Library of Water which American artist Roni Horn created in 2007 in the coastal village of Stykkishólmur. Horn, who has a long-standing affinity for Iceland, placed 24 floor-to-ceiling glass cylinders, each filled with water