Sonot Kk'o'eelzoot / Sonot Kkaazoot

Yesterday the 22nd annual Sonot Kkaazoot ski race was held in Fairbanks (see News-Miner article). The Sonot is usually a 50 km race from downtown Fairbanks up the Chena River to Birch Hill Cross Country Ski Center and back. But for the past two years the race has been held in shortened form entirely at Birch Hill due to unstable ice conditions on the river. I don't know the story of the origin the name of the race, but it appears to come from Koyukon Athabascan Sonot Kk'o'eelzoot, meaning literally 'sliding around in early spring'.

The word sonot itself is an interesting one, meaning 'early spring when thawing begins'. It is derived from so 'sun' and not 'omen'. Thus so-not 'presaging the sun', but with yesterday's temperatures barely rising above zero, it probably didn't feel like sonot.

The word kk'o'eelzoot is based on the root -zoot 'to slide' and means 'he is sliding around', the closest Koyukon approximation of 'skiing'. As for how the race name came to be spelled with kkaa- rather than kk'o'eel- I can't say. Why a Koyukon name rather than a local Lower Tanana name also remains a mystery. But note that the English name Birch Hill does indeed derive from the Lower Tanana name K'iyh Ddheł, literally 'birch mountain'.

Let's hope sonot will arrive soon.