| Abstract | [Earlier this month, my fiancé and I traveled to Iceland for the first time, a nation with recently discovered historical connections to the Americas. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied the culture at the heart of those ties, leading up to this special post on a few takeaways from the trip itself!][Earlier this month, my fiancé and I traveled to Iceland for the first time, a nation with recently discovered historical connections to the Americas.Given that some of them (like the mighty Skógafoss waterfall, which featured a narrow outcropping high above the fall on which visitors could walk with no railings of any kind) are also among the island’s most highly touristed areas, I can’t imagine that there aren’t at least occasional accidents and deaths, yet it seems no one has sued as a result of such tragedies.To name just one example, the beautiful walk behind the Seljalandsfoss waterfall seems at first to be relatively accessible, but then turns (again, with no signage or warnings of any kind) into a scramble up slippery, steep rocks, one that requires a great deal of mobility to complete without significant danger.3) A model of collective memory: On a very different note, I was extremely impressed with the ways Iceland remembers one of the main subjects of my week’s posts: the sagas, and the collective stories and histories they present.
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