The Trap: Karen Keller

Anchorage Public Library is presenting a Community Read through mid-March for the whole family -- a selection of books about Alaska Native culture. In one of the books, The Trap by John Smelcer, the grandfather speaks:

"They say the People of the North have a hundred names for snow. This may not be completely true, but anyone who has lived any time on a frozen land knows that snow has more than one name.

There is sleet, and hail so big around that the sound of it falling on a tin roof is deafening. There are dry, soft flakes that fall gently without hurry or anger, like the lazy flakes in a Christmas-card scene. There is wet snow that sticks to the branches of trees, turns to ice, and breaks their limbs when too much has gathered. Some snow falls straight down, some slant-wise, and some from everywhere, even from beneath as if the freezing earth itself is storming.
...
Only the foolish would say there is one word for snow. Anything that lasts so long and buries a world must be many-named."