Canada’s famous prognosticating rodents were split over spring’s arrival on Groundhog Day.
Ontario’s Wiarton Willie reportedly did not see his shadow on Sunday morning, which is good news for people tired of wintry weather. But Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie Sam and Quebec’s Fred la Marmotte saw their shadows, predicting a long winter ahead.
The tradition holds that if a groundhog doesn’t see its shadow on Groundhog Day, springlike weather will soon arrive. But if a shadow appears, winter’s icy grip won’t let go for quite some time.
Those keeping the Wiarton Willie tradition alive in Ontario’s South Bruce Peninsula carried the white-haired groundhog inside a see-through box filled with a bed of straw to a stage around 8 a.m.
Wiarton Mayor Jay Kirkland, who per local tradition is the only person who can speak “Groundhogese,” put his ear to the box and then announced Willie’s prediction of an early spring to the crowd.
“Willie didn’t see his shadow. We will have an early spring,” Mayor Kirkland said to cheering crowd.
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Nova Scotia’s beloved celebrity groundhog, Shubenacadie Sam, predicted a long winter ahead.
The large rodent poked her nose out from the pint-sized barn door of her enclosure at a wildlife park north of Halifax Sunday morning and stepped out into the -18 C cold.
She spent a few moments sniffing the air and looking around at the crowd that gathered on the sunny and frigid morning to watch her prediction, before turning around and heading back inside her enclosure.
“Not surprisingly, it seems Sam wants to get back inside,” Andrew Boyne, the director of the wildlife division at the Department of Natural Resources, told the crowd.
Boyne said Sam saw her shadow, which folklore says means six more weeks of cold, wintry weather.
“More winter!” He exclaimed.
No shadow is said to foretell the early arrival of spring-like temperatures.
Living on the East Coast, Shubenacadie Sam is typically the first groundhog in North America to issue a long-term forecast.
She is followed by Quebec’s Fred la Marmotte, who made the same prediction of a longer winter, and Ontario’s Wiarton Willie.
In Val d’Espoir, in Quebec’s Gaspésie region, the temperature hovered at -18 C as furry forecaster Fred was scooped from a tiny log cabin, blinking in the bright sunshine as he was brandished in front of the crowd. There was a mixture of cheers and groans as the mayor of the nearby town of Percé announced Fred’s prediction: a late spring.
“Don’t put away the skidoos! Bring out the snowshoes!” cried out another mayor, who was joined on stage by a human-sized dancing Fred mascot and local children and politicians.
In western Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and is predicting six more weeks of wintry weather, his top-hatted handlers announced Sunday.
A massive crowd was on hand to hear the woodchuck’s weather forecast, an annual ritual that has boomed in public interest since Bill Murray’s 1993 movie, “Groundhog Day.”
In medieval Europe, farmers believed that if hedgehogs emerged from their burrows to catch insects it was a sure sign of an early spring.
