100 words for snow

I have heard it said that the Inuit have 100 words for snow. I have also heard that this is a myth. So I consulted the Canadian Encyclopedia which explains that Inuktitut has about 12 basic words for snow and about 10 words referring to ice. However, the language is "agglutinative", which means base words can be added to to change or modify their meaning. The Inuit people's' deep knowledge and understanding of the nature of snow and ice is expressed in an extraordinary number of ways. For example, there are 93 different words describing sea ice, including a term for "ice that breaks after its strength is tested with a harpoon".

All this to say that the Inuit and other Northern peoples are extraordinary in their ability to survive & thrive in such a harsh climate. They live with snow & ice most of the year, and I'm already starting to go bonkers after only a few months of winter (has it been 2 or 3, I can't remember?).

And today, we were shovelling snow yet again. This photo shows the half of my parents' driveway left uncleared after the snowplow got stuck on Sunday. And no, they never returned to finish the job. Wimps!