Cold Calls With Caley Vanular In Iceland

At James, we find inspiration in the people who approach their work and the world around them a little differently. The ones who value the process, trust their instincts, and rely on the tools that help them do what they do. That’s part of why we’re drawn to analog photography, where patience, intention, and a willingness to embrace the unexpected are all part of the process.

Caley Vanular is a snowboarder, photographer, and creative who seems to have little trouble saying yes to a good adventure. So when a last-minute opportunity to fly to Iceland came up, she took it. Cold water, the possibility of snow, and a few days to figure it all out. With film in hand, Caley set out to see what the trip had in store.

The text came in late: a friend asking if I wanted to fly to Iceland in two days to chase surf and snow on the same trip. I said yes before I'd thought it through. That's usually the right way to say yes.

Iceland sneaks up on you. It isn't the postcard. It's the cold that moves into your knuckles after a morning paddle and stays there. The diesel hum of the truck at 5 a.m. with one taillight flickering. The way the wind grabs the smoke off a turf-roofed cabin and bends it sideways before it can disappear.

We were four by the time the crew came together—a couple of friends, a couple of strangers who didn't stay strangers long, all of us bound by the same simple plan: open-ocean surf and dry winter snow, two things that don't usually share a passport. We got to know each other the way you do on a long drive. Shared playlists. Bottomless coffee. The longest stretch between two surf spots ran eleven hours, and not one gas station was open the whole way.

We slept in the back of the van more nights than in beds. Somewhere outside Reykjavík, a woman selling lopapeysa sweaters out of a shipping container read my palm and told me good things were coming as long as I kept moving. I'm choosing to believe her.

Not everything worked. The wind and the swell never fully lined up. The snow melted quickly. We figured it out as we went, which is most of the point. 

One night, we cleaned and cooked what we'd pulled from the water, passing a single knife around the tailgate—small, sharp, the only blade that cut clean through a wool glove. We ate under a sky doing things skies aren't supposed to do, grateful for how simple it had all gotten.

What I brought back: wind-burned cheeks. Cold-shocked clarity. The Ellis still in my pocket. And the reminder that the good stuff happens out in the real world—with your hands, with your people, somewhere the reception drops.

I'm already thinking about when to go back.