It’s odd what Canadians will do to escape winter. Cars that heat up with a remote control, coffees the size of your arm, value SunWings flights that promise to get you to Florida in three hours for $300, taxes included. And we also have a psychic groundhog. Groundhog Day, a non-holiday made internationally famous by the Bill Murray movie, is held on February 2 of every year. On this day, a groundhog, a very specific one with a human name(more on that later), emerges from its burrow, and makes a bold prediction about whether spring is just around the corner, or whether we will have to wait six more weeks for the torture of winter to end.
The groundhog, sadly, does not make a calculated and well-researched declaration into a microphone or as a meteorologist on the nightly news. Instead he is trotted out on stage by a group of men, including the…show more content… His name was Wiarton Willie, and he was an albino groundhog living in the North-of-Toronto community of Wiarton (population 2000. With that many people you can see why a groundhog is a big deal). In the 1980s Wiarton Willie replaced a trio of “Mythical Groundhogs” from the 1950s. His life, though long and useful to the citizens of Canada, ended in scandal and intrigue. In 1999 Willie was found dead just two days before Groundhog Day. He was trotted out in an open-casket, wearing a tiny groundhog tuxedo made especially for the occasion. In the days following the funeral it was discovered that Willie had actually died much earlier, and his body was found decomposed. Thus, town officials had found another groundhog and used him as a body double for Willie, not wanting to mar the festivities that year. When this was revealed a town councillor faced accusations of double murder: murdering Willie and then murdering another groundhog to cover up the first murder. She was never charged with a