Fort Smith resident Geneviève Côté has always felt a deep connection to the French language, and it has only deepened since she became a mother.
Côté was born and raised in Trois-Rivières, Que. In 2006— at just 22 years old — she moved to Fort Smith by herself in search of adventure. She certainly found the adventure she sought amid the stunning landscapes of the North, but relocating was very challenging for her, primarily because she did not speak English when she arrived.
"It was really tough that first summer," she recalled. "I had a hard time. I was dying to make friends, but I couldn't really communicate. It was very frustrating. I was really scared of even answering the phone.
"It was not easy."
However, Côté soon connected with the few other French-speakers living in Fort Smith at the time, which gave her a sense of community. Later, she enroled in the Environment and Natural Resources Technology program at the community's Aurora College campus, which is when she began to learn English.
English came quite naturally to her, and soon, she was confident in her ability to communicate in it. However, she noticed that her ability to speak French was eroding in tandem with the improvements she made in her new language.
"Let's say I was talking to my family [in Quebec]. No one in my family speaks English, so if I'm talking to my family about what I'm doing or working on in fire management or whatever, I was finding myself out of [French] words for a lot of technical terms.
"I was like 'I don't know how to talk about this in my language.' That's where I started noticing it's actually really important to keep the language alive."
Luckily, Côté eventually found more opportunities to speak her native tongue in Fort Smith. While there were only a handful of French-speakers in town when she arrived, the local francophone population has since "exploded."
"Now, we are quite a large community of francophones," she said. "I can spend days just speaking in French."
The strong connection Côté felt to the French language got even deeper when her son Samuel was born.
"I just remember so many Elders in town here that would be telling me: 'My parents, they could speak French, English, Cree, Chipewyan, and I never learned those languages. I never had the chance to learn these languages, and I really wish that I could have had the chance to learn the languages.' I've heard that from so many people that I really made a point that, if I have a kid, I will only speak French to my kid. And that's what we've done. My spouse and I both only communicate in French with Sam."
"For me, it was crucial to teach him my heritage language because my family don't speak English. It was a no-brainer. [I knew] if I don't teach him now, it's just so hard to learn language later on.
"Now he's five years old and fully bilingual... I'm so proud when he can talk with his grandparents on FaceTime. They understand everything he says. It's perfectly clear."
Côté admits it has not always been easy to communicate purely in French with her son. He is enrolled at Joseph Burr Tyrrell (JBT) elementary school, where he speaks English with his teachers and peers, and some days, he attempts to continue speaking English with his parents when he returns home.
However, Côté and her husband rigidly stick to their plan, because they believe it's important.
"I can see how I'm being pretty hard," she said, laughing. "But I'm taking advice from a lot of people in town that have many languages in their families, in their homes, and I've been told, 'You can't give up, don't give up, you've really got to keep at it. As a minority language, you've got to keep pushing.' Every day, he comes home with more English, so I've got to enforce more French at home because it's just so fragile."
Côté has already taught a lot to her son, but, as it turns out, she is also learning from him. Not only is he helping her keep her own French sharp, but he also shares bits and pieces of Chipewyan from school.
"My kid is taking Chipewyan class at JBT," she said proudly. "He comes home and he'll teach me Chipewyan words. He's remembering the words, and he's teaching me how to pronounce them properly.
"He seems to be mastering the language really easily," she said. "I think being a small child, being able to speak two different languages only opens the door to more languages, and that's a gift on its own.
"I have a little five-year-old teacher who's teaching me Chipewyan. It's amazing, right?"
