As a small boy, Bill Arnott pretended a gunny sack belted with a length of cord was a Viking tunic. He completed the uniform with a helmet concocted out of papier-mache and horns, and a round shield and sword made from light wood wrapped in tinfoil. It transported him to an imaginary world that stuck with him. As an adult, Arnott hatched a plan to travel like a Viking, which he says describes "the pursuit of wealth or land -- legacy-building quests, known as going a-Viking ... It was a Grand Tour before rail or the Renaissance, an overseas experience without synthetic packs of Swiss Army Knives. Just wool and fur, wood and iron, axes as tools and weapons along with the power of sail, oar, and effort." Arnott set out on an epic journey of his own following in the wake of "history's most feared and misunderstood voyagers." He traveled throughout Northern Europe, Iceland, the Arctic, the Pacific (including Haida Gwaii), and the Mediterranean, landing finally in Newfoundland (called Vinland by the Vikings). Arnott recounts this odyssey in Gone Viking: A Travel Saga (self-published, 2018), which was a finalist for the 2019 Whistler Independent Book Awards.

Arnott previously published Wonderful Magical Words That Work and Dromomania. He also collected a poetry prize from Pandora's Collective in 2019.

Arnott's other awards include the ABF International Book Awards and Firebird Book Awards. As well, he received The Miramichi Reader’s Very Best Book Award for nonfiction. His column-series "Bill Arnott’s Beat" appears in magazines around the globe, and for his expeditions Bill’s been granted a Fellowship at London’s Royal Geographical Society.

BOOKS:

Gone Viking III (RMB, October, 2023) $30 9781771606462

A Season on Vancouver Island (RMB, 2022) $20 9781771605779

Gone Viking II: Beyond Boundaries (RMB, 2021) $28 9781771605434

Gone Viking: A Travel Saga (RMB 2020/self-published, 2018) $25 9781771604475

Wonderful Magical Words That Work

Dromomania

[BCBW 2023]