On Saturday night at the Top Knight in Yellowknife, a pub best known for beer and hockey will turn into a spelling arena. Eight semi-finalists will step up to the microphone, three will survive to the grand final, and one will walk away as the Northwest Territories' adult spelling champion. Doors open at 6pm on October 3, with spelling from 7pm, and admission is by donation.
The event is the grand final of the third annual Juniper Health Adult Spelling Bee, run by Cabin Radio, the territory's scrappy online news-and-radio outfit. It is a genuinely odd thing to find in a northern pub: a competitive spelling bee for grown-ups, complete with a house band, door prizes, and a crowd that has topped 100 people in past years. Every dollar dropped in the donation bucket goes to the NWT Literacy Council's Dolly Parton Imagination Library program, which mails free books to children across the territory.
The bee began in 2024 as an on-air stunt. Cabin Radio ran daily spelling heats on its morning show, Mornings at the Cabin, throughout October, then brought the survivors together for a live final at the Top Knight. Fourteen contestants made it through the heats that first year, facing off in three semi-finals before a showdown with a $1,000 top prize. The winner was Jacki McKinnon, who correctly spelled halcyon, inveterate, finagle, calisthenics, abhorrence, presbyterian, sequoia and querulous on her way through the bracket. She sealed the title by spelling Kitikmeot, the Nunavut region — a fitting finish, because Cabin Radio's rules require anyone winning the grand final to spell a northern-themed "championship word" to claim victory.
That rule has produced some of the bee's best drama. In the first final, McKinnon misspelled inveighed and looked finished, only to be handed another chance when her opponent failed to correctly spell Tsiigehtchic. In the semi-final she had nearly gone out on wainscoting, surviving only after Julian Morse — now one of this year's semi-finalists — misspelled syllepsis. The northern championship words have included Behdzi Ahda, of Colville Lake's Behdzi Ahda' First Nation.
McKinnon returned in 2025 and defended her title, beating a field of fifteen contenders who had won heats through September. More than 100 people packed the Top Knight to watch. She described the win as "surreal" and admitted, "I studied like a moron." She also offered a candid assessment of the format: "It comes down to: you've got to be able to spell. But there's a lot of luck, as well, in the words that you get." That night she spelled synecdoche to stay alive, then stumbled on Behdzi Ahda before recovering to take the crown again.
This year, though, the two-time champion is out. McKinnon had to withdraw from the 2026 event, which means the territory is guaranteed a brand-new champion. When registration opened in late August, Mornings at the Cabin host Scott Letkeman made his pitch with characteristic bluntness. He was looking for people who had competed before and never won, for "lifelong know-it-alls with nobody to show it off to, because people have stopped listening," and for anyone who "wants to display their brain power and show that they are the best adult speller in the NWT." At the time, he was still hoping McKinnon would take a third shot at glory. "We want to see a new champion crowned or to see something absolutely unbelievable and see Jacki become the three-time NWT Adult Spelling Bee champion," he said. He warned that unseating her would take "an incredible effort" — "a lot of studying," "nerves of steel," and "boning up on all of your community name spelling." With McKinnon gone, that door is wide open.
The eight confirmed semi-finalists are Matthew Leung, Lauren Nolan, Jennifer Franki-Smith, Brie O'Keefe, Kai Tan, Kristie Leach, Philip Boulton and Julian Morse. Several are familiar faces. Leach has reached the final round in both previous editions, finishing as runner-up in 2025 after being unable to spell abscission. Boulton and Leung both competed in 2025, and Morse was in the inaugural 2024 field. One "lucky loser" slot is still up for grabs, so the bracket may yet shift before the first word is read. Three of the semi-finalists will progress to the grand final that closes the night.
The bee is not just a curiosity — it is a fundraiser with a concrete purpose. The NWT Literacy Council facilitates the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in the territory, mailing age-appropriate books every month to registered children up to age five. The program costs about $50 per child per year, shipping included. In its first year, 115 children signed up and 1,000 books were delivered, and the program has since expanded to every community in the NWT. Canada's book list is refreshed annually and includes a minimum percentage of Canadian and Indigenous authors; one recent addition was Freddie the Flyer, a children's biography of Freddie Carmichael, the first Indigenous commercial pilot in the Arctic. Katie Johnson, the council's program director, has described the arrival of the books as a community event in itself: once one child collects a parcel from the post office, others start asking when theirs will come.
The connection to Dolly Parton is not incidental. Parton died in 2026 at the age of 80, and in the NWT she is likely to be remembered as much for literacy as for music. Fort Simpson resident Troy Bellefontaine, a longtime fan, was inspired to bring the Imagination Library to his region after seeing Parton in concert in Calgary in 2016 and hearing her speak about the program between songs. He worked to launch it in Fort Simpson and eventually across six Dehcho communities.
Back at the Top Knight, the night is built for spectators as much as spellers. Past editions have featured a lightning round in which costumed audience members were pulled up and asked to spell words like sesquipedalian, demitasse, aquiclude, tatterdemalion and paramahamsa. This year's crowd can win prizes simply by showing up, courtesy of The Explorer Hotel, Air North, Fatburger, Arctic Duchess Adventures and the Black Knight Pub. Finalists' prizes come from title sponsor Juniper Health and Juniper's Speech Language Pathology Services. Live music is part of the draw, too.
It all adds up to an unusual night out: a pub full of people watching adults sweat over syllables, with the proceeds turning into picture books for kids in communities scattered across a territory larger than most countries. Doors open at 6pm on October 3 at the Top Knight in Yellowknife. Spelling starts at 7pm. Entry is by donation, and a new NWT champion is guaranteed.