Kai Tan was crowned the champion of Cabin Radio’s Adult Spelling Bee on Saturday night after correctly spelling the championship word, Ulukhaktok.
She admitted relief as the word – her second chance of the night to win the title – came up. “I knew it,” she said.
Throughout the evening, the new champion correctly spelled hypocrisy, subpoena, lackadaisical, sarcophagus, palimpsest and coccyx. She failed to correctly spell Edéhzhíe, her first championship word and the name of an Indigenous protected and conserved area in the NWT, before correctly spelling the Arctic coastal community of Ulukhaktok to beat runner-up Julian Morse.
Morse correctly spelled smorgasbord in the final but did not correctly spell bildungsroman, nor staphylococcus. The latter mistake gave Tan a second, successful chance at a championship word.
Under the rules of Cabin Radio’s Adult Spelling Bee, you must not only defeat other finalists but spell a northern “championship word” correctly to lift the title. Failure to get the championship word reinstates any finalists who were still going in the preceding round.
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“I just love words,” said Tan, who said she entered the competition to prove she could do it.
Lauren Hogan, a contestant who asked to be known as MF, Esther Ebbing, Emma Truswell, Matthew Leung, Lauren Nolan, Philip Boulton and Kristie Leach were knocked out in three semi-final rounds, leaving Tan, Morse and Bhagya Pawar to face off in the final.
Pawar was knocked out of the final after failing to spell hegemony.
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Yellowknife’s Top Knight was packed with supporters for the contenders, most of whom won on-air heats on Mornings at the Cabin over the past month to reach this point. A couple of semi-finalists “bought in” on the night in support of the NWT Literacy Council, though all three finalists had come through the on-air stage.
The event raised more than $2,000 on the night for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program, administered by the NWT Literacy Council. That total is expected to increase to more than $3,000 when sponsorships are included. The book gifting program mails free books to children from birth until the age of five in all NWT communities.
“It costs about $48 for one child to receive books throughout the year, so this donation is going to be very, very helpful,” explained NWT Literacy Council executive director Kathryn Barry Paddock.
“We’ve had a lot of corporate sponsors over the years, including the mines, so that money is no longer.”
The event was presented by sponsor Juniper Health, which donated packages of massages alongside gift cards for the top three contestants, as well as smaller prizes for the others.
Door prizes were sponsored by Air North, the Explorer Hotel and the Arctic Duchess. The Black Knight donated bar tabs for lightning-round prizes, in which audience members were given quickfire opportunities to spell obscenely challenging words correctly.
Tan is the second person ever to win the title. Jacki McKinnon won the first and second Cabin Radio Adult Spelling Bee finals in 2024 and 2025, but was not able to be present for this year’s contest.
Below are our favourite photos from the event.
