The lands of northern Iceland are the most desolate through which I have ever walked. The population is so sparse that each individual farm is marked on the national touring map, and even then we could drive for hundreds of kilometers with no sign of habitation. In some places, there were barely even any signs of vegetation apart from moss and a few tiny determined wildflowers. It was like walking on the moon. Black soil would crunch beneath our feet, dust rising slowly from our footsteps. The dark ground would stretch out to the distant volcanic mountains. The pale and dusky sky spread out above us, the dim northern sun a constant companion in the sky. There is a primitive wilderness here that somehow seems to nurture and uplift with its vast expanse of eternity.