The Northernmost Places You Can Live

For most of us, the charm of cold weather can be enjoyed only because we know there will be an end to it next spring. But if you really hate fresh fruit and lawn mowing and swimming pools, if you prefer polar bears to penguins, there are places above the Arctic Circle you can go and live. And there are places even further north that you can't, unless you are assigned to duty there.  

(YouTube link)

Half as Interesting gives us a short delightfully snarky tour of the world's most northern settlements and how you might want to join them. We also learn how to pronounce Thule. -via Laughing Squid


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YouGlish is very handy for these sorts of things. A month or so back my wife and I disagreed on how to pronounce a word. After looking at 10-15 examples from YouGlish we found out that we were both right. About 1/2 the people pronounced it one way and 1/2 the other, and what we hoped was the tiebreaker pronounced it a third way. Also, I've been curious about Longyearbyen ever since I saw a airmap showing this one route that went extremely far north, with a "*" saying "summer only". What, I wondered, was there?
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I don't trust the pronunciation of Thule. He uses "too-lay". With YouGlish I found some anthropologists talking about the Thule people saying "too-lee". https://youtu.be/VpRy2tR6JYQ?t=1434 . According to the lecturer at https://youtu.be/akh4iSCqLJU?t=431 the Thule in "Ultima Thule" is pronounced "thool" while Wikipedia says the IPA is /ˈθjuːliː/ . There are a couple of examples which name the old air base, but I think they are guessing on the pronunciation.

My doubt started because he pronounced "Tromsø" with a "z" sound for the s, which isn't the way to say it in English or Norwegian. He does the same 'z' substitution for "Helsinki", pronouncing it "Helzinki", which isn't correct. He pronounces "Longyearbyen" ending it "ben" when it should be "by-en", with two syllables. (See https://youtu.be/5NhIRwCq428?t=3 , which has some nice drone shots.). Finally, here's a Norwegian saying "Ny-Ålesund" https://youtu.be/aBEGnLtVk64?t=121 . That speaker points out there's one store, open twice a week, and Wi-Fi and mobile phones are not allowed. Wikipedia points out it's a company town, so there's likely no place available to live.
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