YELLOWKNIFE - Can you spell dyspepsia?

It's OK if you can't. One of Yellowknife's super spellers couldn't either.

"My hardest word was 'dyspepsia,'" said Jessica Guigon, 12, adding she also had difficulty with "yacht," forgetting the 'c.'

Reid Tait and Jessica Guigon show off the medals they were given as participants in the local spelldown for Canada's Super Speller. - Alix McNaught/NNSL photo

Guigon is one of three children who participated in an audition for the TV show Canada's Super Speller last week.

Produced by Egghead Productions and Halifax Films for CBC, Canada's Super Speller is searching for the country's best speller, aged 12 or under.

"Right now we have three teams that are travelling around the country, and we're having what we call local spelldowns," said Jed MacKay, the show's creative consultant. "We began the process in the middle of March with an online challenge, and kids across the country who were 12 and under and in Grade 6 or under as of March 31 of this year were eligible to qualify."

The spelling challenge was online for five weeks and thousands of children across Canada participated.

"We had tens of thousands of rounds that were played - well over 40,000," said MacKay. "At the end of it, we managed to come up with the top spellers in each region."

The Northern region consists of Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, with spelldowns in Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Hay River and Iqaluit.

All three of Yellowknife's spellers are students in the same class at St. Joseph school. Reid Tait and Cassidy Atamanenko are in Grade 5; Guigon is in Grade 6.

"We came here after doing the online qualifying," said 10-year-old Tait. "First we got interviewed about all sorts of stuff. Then we went into the room so that we could spell words. First we had to spell 10 words. We had as long as we wanted. We could ask for a sentence. Then we did the speed round."

Guigon said that meant students got 45 seconds to spell as many words correctly as possible.

The words were in sealed envelopes, which the contestants chose themselves.

In addition to MacKay and the camera operator, a local judge, usually a member of the educational community, is also present at the spelldowns.

"Here it was Sasha McBryan from St. Joe's," said MacKay. "The judge verifies the spellings, or if the child spells the word incorrectly, the judge gives the correct spelling."

"I think I did pretty good," said Guigon. "I think I got to eight words out of 10."

She added she was nervous, but not because of the spelling.

"The only reason why I was a bit nervous was 'cause my mom was like, 'You better not get your clothes dirty today cause you're going on TV,' and I ended up getting a grass stain on my knee," she said.

Tait said he had been nervous all day and couldn't remember which words he found most difficult.

"I like spelling," he said. "We didn't know what words we were going to get, but we could practise online and with the dictionary."

Guigon's practise took a different form.

"My mom would just blurt out random words," said Guigon, who was then expected to spell them.

From the results of the local spelldowns, regional spelldowns will take place in August and September for the top four spellers in each region.

"From that group, there will be 12 spellers left, one from each region, and after that, they will all go to Wolfville in Nova Scotia, and there we will hold our finals and our semi-finals," said MacKay. "That's going to be shot in October, and we will find out who Canada's Super Speller is."

Both Tait and Guigon say they are good spellers and want to go to nationals, although Guigon hopes the other participants won't be too competitive.