Essential English phrases

A Manitoba institution: a fundraising party in a rented community hall, usually before a wedding, with cheap drinks, a raffle and a midnight lunch of cold cuts and rye bread. Being invited to one means you have friends here.

A jelly-filled doughnut. Ordering one anywhere else in Canada gets you a blank look; this is Manitoba's word and nobody here knows that.

Honey, mayonnaise and dill, served with chicken fingers. Invented here, sold in Winnipeg grocery stores, and essentially unavailable outside Manitoba.

A hamburger from Salisbury House, the local diner chain founded in 1931. Not a small drink, which is what the word means elsewhere in Canada.

Winnipeg has been 7-Eleven's global Slurpee capital for more than two decades running, and the sales that clinch it happen in January. Nobody here finds this strange.

Highways 100 and 101, the ring road around the city. 'Outside the Perimeter' means the rural fringe, and it is how people here describe both geography and attitude.

The intersection at the centre of the city and the reputed windiest corner in Canada. It was closed to pedestrians for more than four decades before council reversed the decision.

An electric heater in your engine block, plugged into an outdoor outlet overnight. Below roughly −20 °C a car that was not plugged in may simply not start. Rental listings advertise plug-in stalls for this reason.

Manitoba Hydro — which supplies both electricity and natural gas here, so one bill can cover both. Rates are among the lowest in North America because the province is almost entirely hydroelectric.

Manitoba Public Insurance. One public body issues your driver's licence and sells your compulsory car insurance. There is no shopping around for basic cover.

Driver Safety Rating — a scale from −20 to +15 that sets both your licence fee and your insurance discount. You climb one level per claim-free year, so newcomers start low and cannot buy their way up.

Issued when the wind chill is forecast to reach about −40. At that point exposed skin can freeze in roughly ten minutes, and schools and outdoor work adjust accordingly.

Police, fire and ambulance. Manitoba's 24-hour nurse line is Health Links–Info Santé rather than 811, and 311 handles city services.

Social Insurance Number. No employer can put you on payroll without one. Free, from Service Canada, usually issued the same visit in person.