I found this article interesting and thought I'd share. I remember being told in a European Literature literature class that the Russian language has about a dozen words for "snow" but this Eskimo (the article's term for these people) language has triple that, including terms that differentiate between crusted snow, fresh snow, blowing snow, hard snow, soft snow, powdered snow and snow that has someone's name written in it. (OK, you caught me, I made that last one up.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7671137.stm