Tag: Sámi

 Untouched winter snow without tracks. Every skier's dream — a surface no one has reached yet.

 A thin, hard layer of snow compacted by wind — so dense that a ski pole cannot penetrate it. The wind has blown away the loose surface and compressed what remains into something closer to stone than snow.

Snow hardened by strong wind to the point that reindeer cannot forage through it for food. A word that names a crisis — when the snow becomes impenetrable, the animals cannot eat.

 The Sámi season when the snow begins to melt — warm days and cold nights, the skiing conditions always good. The reindeer herders move toward the mountains. Spring, but defined not by a calendar date but by what the snow and the animals are doing.

 A cloud of snow that blows up from the ground during hard frost with little wind. Not a blizzard, not drifting snow — a cold exhalation from the surface itself.

 The skiing conditions created when spring arrives — warm days and cold nights produce a snow surface that is reliable, fast, and forgiving. The Sámi word for good spring skiing.

 Snow. The base word in Lule Sámi for the substance itself — the starting point from which over 200 terms for snow conditions, snow quality, and snow behavior radiate outward.

 Avalanche.

 Granulated snow that forms at the bottom of the snowpack when the winter has been cold. Good snow for reindeer — easy for them to dig through to reach the pasture plants beneath. Also the type of snow that melts rapidly and represents clean water supply.

 The snow condition created when the sun warms a wind-packed surface into something perfectly soft — skis become one with the snow, nearly frictionless. The Sámi also use this word for reindeer meat that has been thawed perfectly, easy to cut into thin slices.