No Turbot in Turbotville, PA

While en route from Bethlehem, PA to Williamsport, PA, I passed signs on I-180 for a place called Turbotville.  I was amused by the name, but didn't think much beyond that.

View Larger Map

Last night, while looking at a website about Iqaluit (yes, I'm still obsessed with Nunavut's capital), I read something about a "turbot fishing industry".  What?!  Turbot is a word outside of the tiny borough in Pennsylvania?!

Interwebz to the rescue!  Turbot are a type of fish!  More specifically, a flatfish.  They're related to flounder and halibut!  I assume they're similarly delicious.

 My, why lovely eyes you have!

Despite how cool this fish looks, Turbotville is not named after it.  In fact, it appears that the fish lives nowhere near Turbotville, PA.  It lives in the North Atlantic (hence, Iqaluit), the Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, and the Black Sea.

So then what was Turbotville named after?!  Wikipedia has this to say:

"The original name was Snydertown, but the name was later changed for Turbot Township (originally Turbutt). The borough now lies completely inside Lewis Township. The first settlement was made by Philip Reifsnyder, a blacksmith, who built a house near the corner of Main and Paradise streets."  

So the borough was named for the township it used to be part of, but I can't find anything about the origin of the township's name.  It was probably the name of one of the early settlers in the area.

Also, Turbotville has their own bank: Turbotville National Bank!

A Cool Canadian Capital City - Iqaluit

I'm very fascinated by remote and 'extreme' locations.  It intrigues me to consider what daily life is like in a place so vastly different than any place I've lived.  I'm from Pennsylvania.  To me, PA is pretty "normal".  There aren't many extremes (no extreme hot or cold, no extreme light or darkness).  It's a pretty reasonable place to live, with four separate seasons and a variety of weather. It's also got a good mix of densely populated areas and sparsely populated areas.  Pretty normal, not too extreme.  So let's talk about a more extreme locale...

Nunavut!
In 1999, Nunavut packed it's bags (not literally) and quit being part of Canada's Northwest Territories to become a territory of its own.  Nunavut spans nearly 1,932,255 sq kilometers of land, and around 20% of its nearly 30,000 people live in its capital, Iqaluit. To put that into perspective, if each member of Nunavut's population had 1sq km of land all to themselves, they'd fit entirely on Prince of Wales Island.  With land left over.  Also, Prince of Wales Island is just slightly smaller than Taiwan, and Taiwan is home to over 2.6 million people.  Hmm. 

Here's a map of Prince of Wales Island, so you can compare it to the rest of Nunavut.

View Nunavut and Prince of Wales Island in a larger map

So if everyone in Nunavut went to a party on Prince of Wales Island and ended up wanting to stay there (nevermind that it's uninhabited), Nunavut would still have more land than ALASKA available for the polar bears and muskoxen and birds and other cool stuff.  Just THINK about that!

Anyway, I think the population density alone is a huge factor for life being vastly different up there.  You know, that and snow.  And polar bears.  And muskoxen. 

MUSKOXEN!?!

Did you know they're related to sheep?  Baaaaa.

Speaking of Nunavut's cool critters... Their license plates rock!  They kept the same license plates when they separated from the Northwest Territories.  Which means that their license plates are shaped like POLAR BEARS!!  Here is a way cool sample, courtesy of Wikipedia and Flickr:

Roar!

Ok, enough about Nunavut.  It's time for Iqaluit! 

Iqaluit!

Iqaluit is Nunavut's capital city, and it is home to somewhere around 6,000 people.  Your college may have had more people than that.  Mine didn't.

While English and French are the official languages in Iqaluit (and Canada in general), about half of the population in Iqaluit predominantly speaks a non-official language, such as Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut, which are among the Inuit languages.  According to the wiki article, Iqaluit means "place of many fish" in Inukitut.  Here is a stop sign in Iqaluit!

Don't you wish your alphabet was that cool?

The 4-way stop diagram rules too!

Iqaluit was also featured in a White Stripes video!

Let's Visit!

Now that you know some of the reasons I'm fascinated by Iqaluit and its bright yellow airport, let's visit!  You can fly there from Montreal and Ottawa!  The Nunavut Tourism website has lots of suggestions on awesome things to do there.  For example, we can go on a number of Arctic Odysseys!


Stats & Data from Statistics Canada.  :)