Alison Levesque knows the importance of passing on her French culture to her two children.
The mother of two from Marathon, Ont. spoke both of Canada’s official languages at home growing up but said it was difficult to maintain her French language in a part of the country that was primarily Anglophone.
She continued to speak French even when she moved to Thunder Bay and married her husband Dale. They have brought up both their children four-year-old Jessie and six-year-old Alexis to speak both languages as well.
“I think it’s very important to be bilingual because it opens up a lot of opportunities,” Levesque said. “Both my parents are French and I participated in French Immersion all through public school. I did find it difficult to keep my French because there weren’t a lot of French programs in Marathon. Both my children will be in French Immersion and hopefully they will have better opportunities to use the language.”
The whole family attended the bi-annual Francophone Festival at the Sports Dome on Saturday. She said the festival was a great opportunity for everyone together and to learn more about the French culture.
Festival chair Claudette Gleeson expected around 2,000 people to show up to this year’s event. The festival had performers Mauvais Sort, Bam and A La Ferme de Jojo give live shows as well as plenty of activities for children such as baseball.
She said anyone could attend even if they didn’t speak French because it was a way for everyone to get introduced or reintroduced to the Francophone culture.
When the event was held in 2010, she noted that 30 per cent of those in attendance were non-French speaking.
“There’s nothing else like this,” Gleeson said. “There’s a hunger and a need to understand the Francophone culture. I see the children and they go ‘wow, we’re not the only ones’. We’re such a small community that we can sometimes feel isolated. This is a chance for us together.”
She said they keep the event bi-annual because of the amount of work volunteers have to do in order to put the festival on.
She added it’s the largest Francophone festival in Northwestern Ontario.
