Mistress of the Maze

For more than twenty years, our friends and clients have been asking us, “Who is Arianne?” And as a matter of fact, there is a story behind the name. It’s a great and ancient story that goes back some three or four thousand years, back to a time when very few people were choosing to move to Canada.

We can trace the origins of Arianne back to ancient Greek Mythology. The Greeks knew her as Ariadne, the Romans called her Ariana, and our company has modernized her name to Arianne. (If you’re not sure how to pronounce it, it rhymes with Mary-Ann.)

So who was she?

A heroic and fabled figure, Ariadne is best known for the pivotal role she played in the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur. You may recall the story of the Minotaur, the half-man and half-bull who was born to King Minos and Queen Pasiphaë, the fruit of a dreadful curse, on the island of Crete. King Minos commissioned Daedalus, the master inventor, to build a massive labyrinth to contain the frightful beast. But according the curse, the people of Crete had to offer the hungry Minotaur—who had  an appetite like a moose—a serving of a human sacrifices, every seven to nine years.

This gruesome ritual went on for years and years, until finally a great warrior name Theseus came along, strong enough and shrewd enough to defeat the bull-headed monster. (Theseus might have made a great hockey player.) But unfortunately, he was not quite clever enough to find his way out of the labyrinth.

That’s when Ariadne, the daughter of Minos and guardian of the maze, wandered inside to rescue the hero, armed with nothing more than a ball of golden string. Unraveling the string as she went, she was able to locate Theseus, and then follow the thread back out of the maze, something like the old trick used by Hansel and Gretel many centuries later.

Rescuing the hero from the maze, that’s exactly what we do as Relocation Specialists. About a half a million people move to Canada every year. And as any of them can tell you, relocating to a new country is nothing less than a heroic undertaking, filled with riddles and enigmas. If not properly executed, a relocation can turn into a tragedy, or possibly a comedy.

At ARIANNE Relocation, we are committed to making every relocation an epic success. Turn over a leaf in one of our Online Relocation Guides to see how we can do the same for you. Also check out our extensive article on Canadian Relocation Services to learn more.

Photo Credit:  Teseo e il Minotauro, Maestro dei Cassoni Campana, ca. 1510-15 (Wikipedia)