Wiarton Willie delivers the bad news

Every February 2nd in North America, otherwise sane people look to a ’shadow cabinet’ of groundhogs (bereft of a collective noun, this is the best I can come up with for reasons which will become apparent) to predict the weather for the next six weeks. The method of prognostication is to pull the poor creature from its burrow in the midst of what should be its hibernation season, to determine whether it can see its own shadow (in layman’s terms, to see if it’s sunny or not). If the animal sees a shadow, it predicts a further six weeks of winter. If not, spring is deemed to be on its way.

The roots of this curious tradition go back a very long way. It was brought to North America by the Pennsylvania Germans, who had a tradition in the old country of venturing out into the woods on the feast of Candlemas to observe the habits of hedgehogs. It was supposed that hibernating animals came out of their burrows on this day to test the weather. Seeing the sun was supposedly interpreted by the creatures as a forecast of crisp, cold days ahead, and they would retreat back into their burrows for a bit more sleep. A cloudy day, on the other hand, was seen as a harbinger of warmer (if more dreary) weather, and they would start preparing for spring.

What does this odd weather divination ritual have to do with Candlemas? There’s no clear answer, but it is perhaps significant that Candlemas is the last feast day associated with Christmas, coming 40 days after December 25th, to celebrate the presentation of Jesus at the temple. In the past, it was customary in many traditions to keep Christmas decorations up until this day (but please don’t tell my Christmas-obsessed wife). As such, it marks the last goodbye to winter festivals. Subsequent religious days are calculated in relation to Easter, the Christian rite of spring.

But rituals associated with this day go back long before Christianity. February 2nd also marks the midpoint between the longest night of the winter solstice and the spring equinox, when day and night are of equal length. This astronomical landmark was celebrated by the Celtic pagans as Imbolc. The Celtic calendar was arranged around the solstices and equinoxes, with each one marking the middle of each season. Thus, Imbolc marked the beginning of spring. As such, many rituals were associated with the day, including weather forecasting through the observation of animals.

Christianity’s feasts and rituals often failed to completely obliterate the old ways, and instead became entwined with them, as seen in the many pagan traditions associated with Christmas (mistletoe and yule logs for example). Imbolc was only partially overwritten by Candlemas in the Celtic consciousness. The feast day became known as St Brigid’s Day, named after a (possibly apocryphal) saint sharing a name with the Celtic goddess Brigid who was herself celebrated by Pagans at Imbolc. The legends surrounding St Brigid became intertwined with those associated with the Pagan Brigid, and many of the old ways continued under the new religion. Among these transplanted traditions were the weather superstitions. Take, for example, this traditional Scottish couplet associated with the day: “If Candlemas Day is bright and clear/ There’ll be twa [two] winters in the year.”

Whatever the origin of the tradition, when the Pennsylvania Germans transported it to North America they encountered a problem. In the absence of hedgehogs, they had to find another hibernating creature upon which to base their prognostications. Enter the groundhog. The earliest reference to groundhog weather forecasting comes from Pennsylvania shopkeeper James Morris’s diary entry from February 5th 1841:

Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.

The first recorded Groundhog Day ceremony took place in 1886 just outside Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, beginning a tradition which has now spread across the northern United States and Canada. Canada’s most famous groundhog celebration began in Wiarton, Ontario in 1956 by complete chance. A local resident Mac MacKenzie decided to throw a Groundhog Day party for his friends on February 2nd. A reporter from the Toronto Star heard about the get together and mistakenly thought there was to be a similar ceremony to the one in Punxsutawney. Feeling sorry for the reporter, who had driven all the way up to Wiarton (a journey of about 150 miles), MacKenzie dug a burrow and placed his wife’s fur hat in it. The journalist took photos of the ‘groundhog’ and published his story. The following year, duped readers and more journalists turned up in Wiarton to observe the ceremony. Mackenzie quickly laid his hands on a groundhog, which he named Wiarton Willie, and the new tradition started.

This year sadly brought no glad tidings from the groundhogs. First came bad news from Nova Scotia’s Shubnedacadie Sam, who at 7am saw his shadow and dived back quickly into his den, expecting six more weeks of winter. Soon after, Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willie both came to the same wintry conclusion. Others concurring with this prediction included Octoraro Orphie, Buckeye Chuck, and Balzac Billy. Among the detractors were French Creek Freddie, Dunkirk Dave and David Philips from Environment Canada. Philips has analysed all of Wiarton Willie’s predictions, and found that the groundhog gets it right exactly 50% of the time, no better than tossing a coin. He commented: “I’m not dumping cold water on Willie. I’m just the truth squad. And there are no predictive skills with Wiarton Willie.” Unfortunately, Philips’s employer, Environment Canada then blew their scientific cachet by arrogantly ‘predicting’ above average temperatures for Eastern Canada for the next three months, a prediction which will only have more credence that Wiarton Willie’s as long as no butterflies flap their wings on the other side of the world in the meantime. So much for the ‘truth squad’…

Mention Groundhog Day to anyone outside North America, however, and they will undoubtedly think of Bill Murray caught in a time-loop in the film of the same name instead of weather forecasting ground squirrels. The term ‘Groundhog Day’ has become an expression describing the experience of being caught in a rut, facing the same intractable problems day-after-day. It is used, for example, to describe such feelings during a tour of duty overseas by American soldiers. Tony Blair used the term in relation to the daily demands in Parliament for a public enquiry following the invasion of Iraq. Roy Halladay, star pitcher with baseball’s hapless Toronto Blue Jays used the term to describe the experience of turning up at spring training every year following yet another season of underachievement.

The 1993 film has, over time, become a classic. Although only the 13th highest grossing film of 1993, it is now ranked second best film of that year behind Schindler’s List on the top 250 list at imdb.com. It has also developed an extraordinary following among the world’s religions. In the truest sense of the word, it is a ‘cult’ film.

In 2003, for example, when New York’s Museum of Modern Art decided to stage a religious film festival with the title ‘The Hidden God: Film and Faith’, the curators of the series polled a number of figures from the fields of religion, film and literature for suitable films with a religious dimension, and found that Groundhog Day was repeatedly mentioned by representatives of all faiths, to the extent that there was a spat over who would write the entry about the movie in the festival catalogue. By popular demand, Groundhog Day ended up opening the season.

To explain the religious context in detail would give away too much of the film to anyone who hasn’t seen it. Suffice it to say that Bill Murray plays an arrogant, cynical weather man, Phil Connors, who is sent to Punxsutawney to cover Groundhog Day. He has a thoroughly miserable time, posts his report and tries to leave, but a blizzard forces him to stay the night. To his dismay, when he wakes the next day he finds it’s Groundhog Day again. The trailer summarises the action without giving too much away far better than I can:

When I first saw the film at the cinema at the time of its release, I thought it was very funny, but didn’t really dwell on it. But the plot of the film is so cleverly realised, that it kept coming back to my mind. Others have pointed out that in comparison to other classic movies it is not remembered for a few iconic lines or particular scenes, it is the overall narrative structure of the film that is memorable. In the final analysis it is a morality tale of a selfish man learning that salvation can only come through dedicating himself to others. As such, it comes from the same rich tradition as A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life, but the deliberate lack of religious (or any other) explanation for the protagonist’s predicament and ultimate release lends it in particular to interpretation and support by many of the world’s faiths.

The concept of a man repeating his experiences over and over again until he achieves the ‘perfect’ day is particularly keen to interpretation by Buddhists and Hindus, who believe that living an imperfect life leads to reincarnation in a cycle of suffering and learning known as samsara which only ends when the soul learns to reach the state of selflessness and peace with the world known to Buddhists as nirvana. Sound familiar?

Similarly, Jews see Bill Murray’s release from the spell as coming as a result of performing ‘mitzvahs’, or good deeds. In the Jewish tradition, performing good deeds does not result in a trip to heaven, but rather an opportunity to do more good on earth, as could be argued happens to Phil Connors at the end of the film. Curiously, Buddhism seemingly has a great deal of appeal to Jews. Around 30% of all Buddhists in North America were born Jewish. Famous ‘Jubus‘ include Leonard Cohen, Goldie Hawn and Allen Ginsberg.

Christians have also got in on the act, observing their own religion’s teachings in the film. When Jonah Goldberg, editor of the National Review polled readers for their views on the film for an article he was writing, he received numerous emails from pastors for whom it is a favourite film and others who have used the story as part their sermons. Catholic theologian Michael P. Foley wrote that the film is “a stunning allegory of moral, intellectual, and even religious excellence in the face of postmodern decay, a sort of Christian-Aristotelian Pilgrim’s Progress for those lost in the contemporary cosmos.” Meanwhile, even Falun Gong, the Chinese spiritualist cult, use the film as a teaching device.

The movie clearly touches something very deep within us as people. When one thinks of the stories from the distant past which have survived with us to this day, most of them are fairy tales, fables or religious stories. As other stories have fallen by the wayside, these moral allegories have stood the test of time. Groundhog Day is in this great tradition, weaving magic, morality and redemption into a greatly memorable tale. Perhaps the affinity with the world’s great religions is not so mysterious after all.