Moose Mail™📖 Talk Like a Canadian
A friendly dictionary of the way we actually talk. New to Canada? Visiting? Marrying into a family from Sudbury? Start here. 100 words on six shelves, and every shelf has its own page, so there is no endless scroll. Take a taste of each below, or search the whole dictionary at once.
☕ Everyday Essentials
double-double
A coffee with two creams and two sugars. Order it with total confidence anywhere in the country.
toque
A knitted winter hat. It is not a beanie. It will never be a beanie. Required equipment, roughly October to April.
🍟 From the Kitchen
poutine
Fries, cheese curds, gravy. The curds must squeak. Non-negotiable.
Timbits
The bite-sized centres punched out of doughnuts, sold by the box since 1976. Bringing a box to the office is not a snack decision. It is diplomacy.
🗺️ Regional Treasures
bunny hug
A hooded sweatshirt. In Saskatchewan it is not a hoodie, it has never been a hoodie, and it will fight the word hoodie in a parking lot. The rest of Canada is slowly coming around.
jambuster
A jelly-filled doughnut. Manitoba looked at the humble jelly doughnut and gave it a name with some muscle behind it.
🏒 Hockey & Winter
deke
A fake-out: show the puck one way, take it the other, and leave the defender studying the ice where you used to be. From the word decoy, and just as dishonest.
chirp
To trash-talk, creatively and constantly, from the bench, the ice, and row nine. Chirping is a skill position. Some players make the league on it.
❄️ Weather & the Wild
snowbird
A Canadian who winters somewhere warm, usually Florida or Arizona, and returns with the geese. An official migration, recognized by every airport in February.
muskeg
Spongy, waterlogged bog land across the North, from a Cree word for the low grassy marsh. It looks walkable. It is not walkable. The muskeg decides.
🍁 Only in Canada
Mountie
An officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in the red serge and wide-brimmed hat the whole world recognizes on sight.
Canadarm
Canada's robotic arm, the one that worked on the space shuttles, whose bigger sibling still serves on the International Space Station. It is even pictured on our five-dollar bill.