Are you familiar with a snotcicle? How about foggypeepers, mueling or sneep?
If you live in Manitoba, you’ve likely experienced most of these before, although you may not know the terminology, which is an invention of a local man with a particular love for the province’s bitterly cold winters.
Chris Beauvilain is the creator of Frosty Face Manitoba, a social media account that collects photos of locals experiencing the outdoors in less-than-ideal temperatures.
“I was inspired by seeing people out and about and just loving this province and this city,” Beauvilain told 680 CJOB.
“I just wanted to host a page where everyone could send me pictures of their builds or their skating rinks that they made … but especially their frosty face.
“I love that image of the smile in a really cold environment. If we could share that everywhere in the world, people could look and say, ‘wow, it’s -35 C in Winnipeg, and it’s awesome there’.”
As for the unusual lingo, Beauvilain said he wanted to come up with a vocabulary for common winter experiences.
A snotcicle is fairly obvious, while foggypeepers means glasses covered in condensation, mueling is “the act of carrying a huge pile of winter gear when coming into a warm environment that lacks hooks and storage,” and sneep, of course, is a portmanteau of the words “snow” and “creep”.
“I just wanted to make words that are kind of fun that people can identify with,” said Beauvilain.
“When your kid throws a snowball down your back and you get the ice coming down your back, that’s… I don’t know, a ‘neckie’, or something.”
Originally from Alberta, Beauvilain said he just wants to share his love of Manitoba winters with the world and hopefully put a smile on people’s faces — something his more than 1,000 Instagram followers do on a regular basis.
“Winter can be really long, and I find if you embrace it, or at least if you understand it, then the season seems to slip by a lot faster,” he said.