Snow

Greetings From Santa’s Friend!

Last month when snow was belting North America, Santa came whipping down from the North. He was obviously in a very good mood. He was singing. The tune was familiar and so were some of the words. "Oh, the weather out side is frightful -" But when he got to the end he didn’t sing "Let it snow, Let it snow Let it snow." Instead he used some strange sounding words. It turned out that he was singing: Let it aniu, Let it siqoq, Let it upsik. Naturally I asked him about it.

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"It’s very simple. To those who don’t live in the Arctic, snow is snow. Not so at the pole. The Inuits - most people call them Eskimos - live in the North and are pretty well known for having somewhere in the vicinity of twenty words for snow. They even have a word for where snow has been, but has blown away. That word is "sich."

You might think this is strange but let me use an analogy to give you some perspective. In the temperate zone you have all sorts of words for dirt. There is sand, silt, and clay. Loam is a combination of all three. Then there is soil, which is composed of disintegrated rock and humus. Rocks, all by themselves, are considered dirt if they are tiny enough. (Take a close look at sand sometime.) Humus is dirt. Earth is dirt. It just goes on and on and on.

At the pole we are surrounded by all kinds of snow. Some is powdery and great for skiing. Others pack well and are good for snowball battles. When you think about it, it is understandable that words would be developed to describe the different kinds of snow. But let’s get back to the song.

Aniu is the word for falling snow. Siqoq is the word for drifting snow. And Upsik is the word for snow whipped by the wind. So the chorus of "Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow" as we sing it is " Let it fall, Let it drift, Let it blow." It doesn’t rhyme very well but it is descriptive."

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He then said something about the snow turning into "siqoqtoaq" which would make for a tough trip and was off. Maybe during his next visit I will find out what "siqoqtoaq" means.

Until then, rest easy!

Santa’s Friend

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