ipattison's blog
Canada has a new spelling champ!
OTTAWA
Emma Brownlie didn't have to go far to win Canada's spelling bee. The Grade 8 Ottawa public school student outlasted 10 other spellers in a gruelling elimination round Saturday, just across the bridge in Gatineau, Que., to win the CanWest CanSpell national spelling competition.
With the grand auditorium of the Museum of Civilization transformed into a television studio, the finalists started spelling a series of words with a degree of difficulty that quickly went from bad to worse -- or, in Emma's case, from "scurrilous" through "troglodytic" to "molybdenum."
Sylvester the Cat said it best: "Sufferin' succotash."
OTTAWA
Sylvester the Cat said it best: "Sufferin' succotash."
It's what the lovable Loony Tunes character uttered when he was stymied and it's the word that tripped up Thunder Bay's Logan Turner in the sixth round of the CanWest CanSpell National Spelling Bee here Friday.
The native American word for a dish made of lima beans and corn ends with "sh" but Logan spelled it "succatache" and with that, Thunder Bay's first run at Canadian spelling supremacy was over.
Day 2 - around Ottawa
Canada's 22 best young spellers toured parts of the National Capital Region Thursday, beginning with a trip to the top of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill.
Thunder Bay's own Logan Turner joined the new friends he'll compete against Friday, in a visit to the Memorial Chamber where the names of every one of Canada's war dead are hand-written into books of remembrance.
"The view was so great," said Logan. "You could see almost all of Ottawa and the (stone) detail out the windows was very artistic."
Day One
A pleasant plane trip from Thunder Bay ended with a double surprise Wednesday as Logan Turner and 21 other spelling bee finalists from across the country were met by a media onslaught inside Ottawa airport and bright, sunny shirtsleeve weather outside. CanWest television and newspaper personnel made the young spellers feel special with major coverage of their arrival. You can see it on the CanWest CanSpell website (www.canspell.com) and follow Logan through the preliminary round of the national spelling bee on Friday.
