Back at the Tok Kiosk's Mukluk Rack

Lately, I've had a little time on my hands. I had no serious spring cleaning to bug me, since my wife hasn't been born yet, and every time I did try to shuffle the dust around a bit, another tornado would swing by, and I would end up spending the next few days prying comically flat livestock off the garage door.

And so one day, in between lobbing chicken Frisbees at the neighbors, I took up some light reading - some statistics I had come across concerning newspapers in America. It turned out to be pretty interesting reading, just looking at what some of my fellow citizens are reading across the country.

There's the fierce-sounding Mukluk News, serving the 700 readers of Tok, Alaska. Or the generally unfamiliar combination of syllables - the Woonsocket News and the De Smet News of South Dakota. The Comanche Times in Oklahoma has conjuring potential, as does the Jicarilla Chieftain in New Mexico. The Butte Gazette, which is not in Butte, serves its 600 subscribers in Spencer, Nebraska. Conway Springs, Kansas, publishes the Star & Argonia Argosy, although they have a fit trying to fit the paper's name on any of their guest bathroom towels. Venice Beach, California, does not have the Manly Signal, because Iowa got it first, and I have no doubt that several hundred cities would like to corner Arizona in some dark alley, with an eye toward stealing the rights to "The Smackover Journal." And colossal kudos go to the alluringly alliterative "Trammel Trace Tribune" of Tatem, Texas.

But nothing can touch the Tok Mukluk.

I wonder what it must be like, to be a reporter for the 700 subscribers of the Mukluk News? I'm sure it's a wonderful place, if you define wonderful as "freezing to death during your entrée of caribou-ventricle salsa." But I grew up in a small southern town, and my high school senior class graduated more than 700 people. And in my formative years, the word "freeze" was limited to the unfortunate, occasionally escalated, late-Saturday-night traffic stop.

I've read that the original Alaskan inhabitants have several dozen different words for snow, not counting "cocaine." There's Qanniq (falling snow), Qannialaaq (light falling snow), Natquik (drifting snow), and South Miami (very rare snow, unless you count cocaine). There's fresh snow (Nutaryuk), fresh snow without any ice (Kanut), and fresh ice without any defrosting (Frigidaire DeLuxe).

There's pink snow (Mentlana), red snow (Isiriartaq), green snow (Sulitlana), snow that looks blue in the morning (Kriplyana), white snow (Snow White), and the infamous yellow snow (Zappa Apostrophe Klassiq). The quaint translation of Peqalujaq (rather old ice) speaks to a kinder, gentler, but still really cold time, and we note a nod to current sensibilities in Allatla, their complex word for their complex concept of baked snow, recently translated as "water."

Should you run across an "arrowhead-shaped snowdrift on top of upsik," expect to hear locals excitedly yelling "Kalutoganiq!" which roughly translates as "cold people, we have got to get a hobby."

There's a word for remembered snow (Klin) and a word for forgotten snow (Naklin). There may even be a word for "snow that we forgot about, but Uncle Cold Person just remembered that he left it in the car's mitten box," but if there is such a word, I already Nak what it is.

The word "Puntla" offers a brisk insight into some of the rigid situational ethics holding sway among the Alaskans. Puntla is defined as "a mouthful of snow because you fibbed." That, in my opinion, is a harsh code of justice. I mean, come on. You're a kid. You're cold. You have a skin condition from an extended snowmobile driver's license test at the DMV. You snap. You tell a little fib. And suddenly, the Coldest Elder Person stomps through the Aniuvak or the Katakartanaq or the Baked Alaska, and utters the dreaded penance: Puntla.

That's ... well ... cold. Now, not only do you have a mouthful of snow, you have the pending threat of new snow nearby, snow that is mixed with something left by the arresting officer's lead sled dog.

Aw, man! I do not believe this Quinyaya!