RIP Wiarton Willie

Willie is/was an albino groundhog who is Canada's most famous weather-predicting woodchuck. He's got a better success rate than the animal some delusional types believe is Willie's rival, Punxsutawney Poseur Phil.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...ageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home

The nine-year-old groundhog held the position of Wiarton’s weather prognosticator for the last seven years. He was given to the town after an Ottawa resident found him on the side of Highway 417.

His predecessor’s death in 1999 was surrounded by controversy when the groundhog died just before the annual February festival. Newspapers and television stations around the world published pictures of him lying in state in a pine casket.

 

Cram it, Cauncks. Here is the greatest weather-forecasting animal of all-time ...

 

Our much-loved marmot makes his prediction in 2004.



Willie will be cremated and his ashes will be buried next to his statue in Wiarton, near the shore of Colpoys Bay.



Where the hell is Wiarton, Ontario?



The big lake on the left of the map, by the way, is Lake Huron -- not Lake Superior. Must be an American map. ;D

 

Holy crap! I just lost all respect for Mapquest. That's an egregious error. Maybe that's why the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, they were navigating via Mapquest.

 

Unavailable for comment.

 

I just watched an oft-repeated documentary about that tonight. Not sure if today was a special occasion related to the ship but I never tire of reading/hearing about it.

 

As far as animals that can drive are concerned, I'm partial to Toonces....

 

Toonces: The Cat Who Could Drive A Car. This week's episode: Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!

 

I have been gunned in at least nine places on JJ's map and stopped for Tims in many, many, many more (like Blind River, Espanola and Nobel which is way too small to make a map - even one that can't get the Great Fucking Lakes right).

 

According to this map, Lake Ontario will become Lake Erie.

Does that mean Toronto is actually Detroit?

 

The way the murder/gun-related offence rates are climbing, you have to wonder.

But who am I to talk? There was a murder in Owen Sound two nights ago. No, smartasses, I wasn't involved -- but it did happen a block away from my workplace, while I was there. Creepy.

 

Was the Harb involved in some way?

And hey, Detroit had better hockey than TO and the Tigers are better than my Jays. And even though the Lions are shit, its at least real football not that three-down shit they play up here.