The Inuit have several different words for snow each denoting what sort of snow it is. On Monday afternoon we got “tlamo – snow that falls in large wet flakes”. Monday night was perfect for sledding and building snow people and animals. After the heat of Tuesday it turned into “kripya – snow that has melted and refrozen”. No longer great as a building material it was going to be a perfect canvas for some snow art.
It is always interesting to how the kids take an activity and make it their own. After about a half an hour with several bottles of water and food colouring and a big patch of white snow we had the most beautiful piece of collaborative art that could have held its own in any of the fine art galleries in New York.
This art, however, was more of a performance piece. Although the final product was a colourful and beautiful piece, it was watching the kids run around with the coloured water and get excited by squirting the snow was really the most beautiful part.
There is no Inuit word for “snow that inspires the imagination”.
Maybe there should be.
