Bonus Question: Why would I support the Penguins?
A lot of things I see every day are unknown in other parts of the world. If you are not a Northerner*, see if you can identify the following items.
Answers to follow in the next post for anything not discussed in the comments!
*If you live in the Canadian Territories, of course I am a Southerner.
1. ↑ What would Canadians say about this chic winter look?
2. ↑ What is this?
3. ↑ A hoe? An edger? Or…?
4. ↑ What does this have to do with Canadian winters?
5. ↑ What are these and why do you give them to children?
6. ↑ What is going on here?
7. ↑ How many snow shovels do you need?
8. ↑ What kind of trip is this for?
9. ↑ Excellent winter tires for these roads! True or False?
10. ↑ Bath mat or winter accessory?
11. ↑ What is this for, winter-wise?
12. ↑ What the heck is going on here?
13. ↑ How might this have happened?
14. ↑ Neither shovel nor snowblower did this job.
15. ↑ What’s this?
↑ A. Montreal, Canada
↑ B. Durham, UK
16. ↑ Of the two news photos above, which had the headline “long Arctic winter,” A or B?
Looking forward to your replies!
An Exacting Life 
1. ha, ha, ha
2. put on your shoes or is it big enough to put on your car tires????
3. ice scraper for driveway and /or footpath
4.no idea, a rubber ring to sit on if you piles?
5. attach kids mittens/gloves too, the other end attaches to the childs coat
6. leave your window wipes up so don’t get stuck to window….never saw the point of this by the way
7. we have three…just saying
8. sports to put your ice skates in (?) I actually thought it was for hockey equipment, but not sure
9. if they are all season tires, they suck in the winter. You need WINTER tires, even I know that, no idea however what they look like???
10. winter, kids love to go down hills on them
11. ice fishing, drills a hole in the lake………..totally a pointless operation if you ask me???
12. blowing off the snow from your house roof, as too much snow on your roof, will cause it to collapse
13. various reasons, generally caused by someone not driving correctly!!
14. One of the mini sidewalk snow cleaners, that also destroy the edges of your lawn as they go by….ask my dad about this!
15. for people learning to skate they hang onto them…
16. Probably B, they are so not set up for Winter weather!!!
17. The person who answered the questions in this post, is she British or Canadian??? Trick question worth oh, say 16 points!!
Well done, Gill, you are one of us now! Bonus points if you say “It was just a dusting” (of snow) when we get 5 cm!
Okay I know what most of those are, but what is number 5? I own an ice pick it sure beats salt for removing the ice. 🙂 Clearing a roof of heavy snow is common here as well. Oh and I bought a pair of the ice cleats myself this year instead of purchasing a new pair of boots.
You can check the next post. Ice pick; now that is serious!
Hmm…I think the second pic is something that goes on your shoes, and the tires look normal to me and thus not good for winter! (Well, a winter with snow…)
Picture B is definitely the one with the ‘arctic’ headline….there is always a ridiculous story in the paper in the autumn about it being the coldest winter ever…which inevitably it is not.
I think we are crap at dealing with snow here because some years we have it, and some years we have none, just lots and lots of mud. People here complain that there are delays etc at airports if there is snow ‘because other countries manage to keep the runways clear’, forgetting that said ‘other countries’ have snow all winter and therefore built in runway clearing time/very expensive equipment. We don’t even have snow some years, so I don’t think our airports feel the need to invest in the most up to date stuff.
The greatest winter hazard is people who can’t drive in snow/ice- too fast and not smooth enough!
I guess the airports and airlines have to decide which costs more, cancelled flights or snow and ice equipment! We say the same thing about winter drivers.
OK… this should be fun…
1) You gotta be kidding me! I was about to say that I wouldn’t be caught dead in those heels in any climate, but then I realized that was in inaccurate statement, because most likely I’d break my neck after a few steps!
2) Looks like a crampon, but I don’t see any spikes. Maybe it’s a mini-crampon designed for street wear as opposed to ice climbing?
3) An ice scraper of some sort?
4) Hmmm… some sense of scale would help on this one. Could be a skinny inner tube for sledding, but I doubt it.
5) I’m goin’ with Gill on this one. They look like mitten clips to me.
6) Goin’ with Gill again – though to be honest, I didn’t notice the wipers until I read her comment!
7) Ha! Well, way more than one, that’s for sure. Plastic ones are better for lifting but suck at breaking up ice. Those push-along models are great, but not for the heavy stuff.
8) Well, given the fact that it’s made by Reebok, I’m guessing sports equipment of some sort. Hockey perhaps?
9) Um… false. Actually, that road doesn’t look too bad, but I think I’d be stickin’ with studded snow tires!
10) Looks like a thing I use to kneel on in the garden. Could be used as a sled I suppose.
11) Ice fishing for sure.
12) Melting frozen gutters. Soooo glad we don’t get ice storms here!
13) Look Out Below!!! Iceberg falling from tall building. That happened to one of my professor’s cars during a bad winter in Upstate NY. Steep roofs are great for the structural integrity of the building, but murder for those below!
14) No clue… Snowcat of some sort?
15) OK I cheated and looked at Gill’s answer. Where were these when I was a kid? Seriously, the only thing I remember about the ice rink was being told that if I fell down I needed to pick my hands up immediately so somebody wouldn’t skate over my fingers and cut them off. I was so traumatized by the whole ordeal that I spent the entire time huddling in the bleachers crying – thus ending my dream of becoming an Olympic figure skater. Sigh.
16) Ha! I’m gonna say B, just because, yanno… why else would you have included it?
Very good – you know your snow!
This southerner faired poorly.
It would be bliss not to have to know these things!
Ok 1) This is great 2) my answers:
1) Heels = death by falling on ice
2) Treads for shoes
3, 4) Don’t know 😦
5) to keep pants down, preventing snow up the leg
6) Leave up wipers to make it easier to brush down car
7) 1 per person, plus spares in case they get stolen.
8) Hockey?
9) They look nice and thin
10) Sled
11) Ice fishing
12) Blowing snow off of roof, preventing collapse and leaks (which is what happened to us this weekend!
13) Frozen rain – I am guessing the ice weighed a tree down
14) One of those sit on things that pushes the snow.
15) For children to learn to ice skate with
16) Ha, I am going to guess b – sounds like an English thing to say!!
Sorry to hear you had a leaky roof. You’re right, snow shovels and any other winter equipment left outside could get stolen. You are thoroughly acclimatized now!
I failed on quite a few, although I know the last one lol!
On the other hand, we say it’s a heat wave when it gets to 30 C in the summer!
OK… CatMan figured out number 4 – but he cheated and used his geeky wizardry to search the web for similar images. I won’t spoil it, but suffice it to say I’d never heard of the thing!
That image finder thingy is cool.
Bonus question: because penguins are cute.
1. Too glamorous. Looks like too much fun. (OK, I got it. High heel shoe. But I was just ribbing.)
2. I thought crampons too. But get Holly’s answer.
3. Ice shovel-ly thing. (Isn’t everything ice or snow related in C?)
4. I thought same as Gill. A ring for piles. My mother always said you’d get piles if you sat on the heater. Do you all sit on heaters too much? Or are your car seats so cold you have to sit up higher? lol
5. I thought the opposite of Holly. To keep pants up, ie attach top of pants to top. But my first guess was for mittens or gloves, to attach them to the child’s top.
6. We do this down the snow, so I got this one. Wipers up to stop them sticking.
7. About as many beach towels as we need in my house.
8. I thought skiing, for the boots. But given the comments about ice hockey (I get that you don’t need to put those two words together as it is understood, but for the rest of us, without the ice it is played in soccer boots and on turf) I make that my second guess, or just plain ice skating.
9. They’d look nice on my husband’s V8!! I don’t know what snow tyres look like, but as everything is extreme, I am guessing false.
10. Looks like a chopping board! I can’t work out the size or material. If it is small, I am guessing to scrap ice from windows. If it’s a sled, you’d get in trouble using it on our snow fields. Too little snow covering the rocks so the thin sled would lead to instant injury.
11. I’ve seen the grumpy old men movie and saw them ice fishing. Looked bloody cold!! And if I couldn’t strike oil, or gold, I wouldn’t bother. I’d probably die in 30 minutes.
12. I got what others said. Collapsing roofs makes good visuals for our news. They have to fill 24 hour news shows with something!
13. A moose? Just saw this on TV show about truckers! (Yes, I watch high brow stuff.)
14. A mini snow plow. Much smaller than the one Homer Simpson used in one of the episodes. (Can you see why I am so clever – all that study from TV!)
15. No idea. A bike rack for a bike with very, very fat tyres. (OK I think those who say it is for learning to ice skate must be right but I can’t see how it works. It may have save me a wet bum.)
16. I cannot imagine Canadians going into hyperbole. Nor adopting the British fashion to always having to talk about the weather, so I am guessing Durham. (I am worried about being in London next month. 4 to 9 degrees C!!!! For three weeks!!!!! Argh! I am having great dilemmas about what to pack and wear. I want to look gorgeous (Like picture 1) but don’t want to be cold!)
Brilliant quiz, Dar!
BTW, failed on my snacking challenge. Ate a big handful of jaffas and half a packet of savoury crackers this afternoon and three plain bikkies for morning tea.
Thanks. Sadly, we do always talk about the weather. Actually 4 to 9 degrees is pretty cold when you’re not accustomed. I travelled to the UK on the 12th of March a few years ago and it was full-blown spring compared to here, daffodils blooming and the whole bit, and it was 10-12 C. Which I thought was fabulous. I’ll trade you a few snow shovels for a few beach towels!
I am back on the wagon with my snacking but I am planning on going out for cheesecake for Valentines Day!
I’m so amused by this, Dar! It really highlights how different the places we live in are. I just have absolutely no idea what most of those things are. It would be pretty funny to hand each item to an Aussie in a pub in Canada and ask them to demonstrate what to do with them!
I haven’t read the other comments yet so these are my answers (after much brain-strain!)
1. Classy, awesome. Heel-defyingly fashionable.
2. Literally *no* idea. I’m running with ‘personal bondage item.’
3. I’m guessing snow shovel, but I’ve never seen one or used one, ever.
4. If someone handed that to me in Canada I would sit on it and donut down a toboggan run.
5. I can’t even approximate a guess on No. 5. They look like perfume bottles to me.
6. Hmmm. These people have a week off work while their cars are trapped?
7. I would think you only need one snow shovel per household?! (clutter!)
8. The Reebok bag is an insulated picnic hamper with built-in wine compartment.
9. Appalling winter tires! They should have metal chains all over them.
10. I really think I know this one. It’s a hot-water bottle to keep your toes toasty in bed.
11. OK this looks like a post-hole digger, to dig out holes for fence posts. I don’t know how that relates to winter though. No idea!
12, Twelve is tough! He looks like he’s pressure cleaning the roof with a Gerni? To reduce the weight of ice?
13. Moose attack.
14. I need to google ‘snowblower’ before I can get to part (b).
15. It looks like a kid’s portable soccer goal over here but I’m thinking maybe an ice-hockey goal in Canadian terms.
16. I have looked at too many ‘Meanwhile in Canada’ memes to think that Canadians would call their own weather Arctic, so I’m running with (B), Durham.
Very entertaining – I’m off to read the other answers!
LOL on #2! For #4, yes there are tubes like that for tobogganning, and also for water skiing! For #6, LOL again, we had a storm this week and we were given 2 hours off work to shovel out. Cool that you knew about moose, but they don’t attack cars, they just happen to get in the way of them. I have to ask, do people hit kangaroos with cars in Australia? Or rather, do kangaroos wander out in front of cars? We call our weather “seasonal” i.e. appropriate for the time of year. 🙂
Yes, people regularly hit kangaroos with cars – I think that’s why both Lucinda and I made the connection that a moose might be involved. I have seen two dead kangaroos on roads in recent weeks. At dusk, everyone slows right down in country areas because of the danger of hitting them.
Same for us with deer – we don’t have moose in our near area, but within a couple of hours.
Great quiz! As to #15, I saw my nephew using one of these on the rink this winter (wearing his helmet too), and I thought, spoiled kids these days, because when I was a kid if you were given anything it was an unstable wooden chair to push around with no helmet in sight!
Thanks. I think the skating frames and training skates are great. Sometime you still see chairs on the ice! At the rink where I skate, helmets are mandatory for all ages. When I went to buy one I thought, “Oh no, I am going to look like I’m in the Timbits League!”
1 – hahaha. She’ll freeze.
2 – Treads for shoes.
3 – Oh. I forget what this is called but we have it. It’s used to scrape ice on the driveway.
4 – No idea.
5 – Is this keep the mittens connected to the coat?
6 – You put the wipers up so they don’t freeze.
7 – All of them? XD Seriously though, I recommend 5 different kinds.
8 – No idea.
9 – I can’t really tell from the threads. And it kinda depends where you are. In major cities, I recommend against the ones with the metal but in Toronto, this is good.
10 – Tobagonning!
11 – Drill to ice fish.
12 – Blowing snow off the roof
13 – Tree probably crashed down.
14 – City sidewalk snow clearer. They’re basically like little cars that have shovels in front of them.
15 – To learn how to skate.
16 – For irony, I’m guessing it’s B. (Cause that looks like a regular Montreal weather to me.)
Great score, AP! We usually have 3 snow shovels in rotation and one in the car in case we get stuck somewhere.
Pingback: Answers to True North Quiz | An Exacting Life