YELLOWKNIFE - Three members of the Yellowknife francophone community will head to Quebec City Mar. 16 as the local winners of the Dictee des Ameriques.

L'Association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife (AFCY) held their dictee last week, which tests French language skills such as spelling, grammar and verb conjugations. The three winners will compete with other francophones from across the Americas at the finals.

Gilles Anyot will represent francophones of the NWT at the Dictee des Ameriques in Quebec City next month. The contest tests French language skills of francophones from all over the Americas. - Christine Grimard/NNSL photo

Organized by Tele-Quebec, the contest is open to participants in Canada, the United States and other countries with a French-speaking population.

Batiste Foisy, a journalist for the French-language newspaper L'Aquilon, will represent the NWT in the senior professionals category. Abeer Shoblak from Ecole Allain St. Cyr will participate as the local winner of the junior category.

Gilles Anyot, who just moved to Yellowknife from Montreal in October, will compete in the senior amateur category.

Coming from Montreal, Anyot had always been interested in the Dictee des Ameriques but was too intimidated to participate. He said that with the close francophone community in Yellowknife, he felt more comfortable competing in the company of friends.

The local contest was held Feb. 1 at Ecole Allain St. Cyr with a dozen participants competing in two senior categories.

Carmen Moral-Suárez, director general of AFCY, said the contest is a way of demonstrating how large the Francophone community is.

"It's a sense of belonging to a broader community," said Moral-Suárez. "Realizing French is more than just Quebec and France."

The Yellowknife winners will represent all of the NWT, as only the AFCY is sending competitors to Quebec.