{"id":637642,"date":"2026-04-30T02:30:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637642\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T02:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:30:22","slug":"%e2%96%b7watch-alberta-francophones-celebrate-language-culture-and-life-at-calgary-franco-winterfest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637642\/","title":{"rendered":"\u25b7WATCH: Alberta Francophones celebrate language, culture and life at Calgary Franco Winterfest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada is a bilingual country, but in English-speaking parts of the country Francophones can find it hard to preserve their language and culture. Franco Winterfest in Calgary gives Alberta Francophones a chance to celebrate and share their cultures.<\/p>\n

\"\"Guests eat brunch and listen to live French music by Groupe Le Fuzz at Franco Winterfest in Calgary. Supplied by ACFA Calgary. PHOTO: NADOO ABAAGU<\/p>\n

On March 14th, Franco Winterfest celebrated its fourth year at The Confluence Historic Site and Parkland in Calgary. The event takes place in March \u2014 the month of the Francphonie in Canada. An important reason for the festival is preserving the French language and francophone cultures.<\/p>\n

Isma\u00ebl Diallo, a guest at Franco Winterfest, said it is important to him that his children know where they come from by engaging with the francophone community.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dany C\u00f4t\u00e9, president of the French Canadian Association of Alberta in Calgary addresses guests at the fourth annual Franco Winterfest. Supplied by ACFA Calgary. PHOTO: NADOO ABAAGU<\/p>\n

\u201cPreserving francophone culture is important even for our kids,\u201d said Diallo. \u201cI know they will speak English for sure, because we live in Calgary, but I want them to speak French to preserve the language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franco Winterfest highlighted French Canadian traditions like maple taffy, Metis dancers and folk singers, but it also featured global francophone and non-francophone cultural traditions such as Native dancers and Hakili drum and dance.<\/p>\n

Dany C\u00f4t\u00e9, festival organizer and president of the Calgary branch of the French Canadian Association of Alberta (ACFA), said the festival values its inclusivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe importance of the festival for the French community is to be a kind of a window on [how] vibrant and inclusive the Franco community is in Calgary,\u201d said C\u00f4t\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Franco Winterfest honors Francophone traditions across the world, and promotes the learning of French by sharing it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Calgary Journal Reporter Nadoo Abaagu reports on the fourth annual Franco Winterfest in Calgary. VIDEO: NADOO ABAAGU<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

Report an Error or Typo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada is a bilingual country, but in English-speaking parts of the country Francophones can find it hard to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48,133261,238194],"class_list":["post-637642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada","tag-francophone","tag-winterfest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}