The Town of South Bruce Peninsula says it’s excited to announce Wiarton Willie has returned home.
The famous albino, prognosticating groundhog will be making the 2023 prediction on Groundhog Day.
Prediction morning is held each year on Groundhog Day (February 2), while this year, festival events will be held on Saturday February 4, 2023.
The Town says the groundhog who made the 2022 prediction will take a back seat in 2023 and “remain an ever so spoiled understudy.”
Mayor Janice Jackson says in a statement, “We’ve been waiting quite some time for Willie to come home! It’s such a relief to have our albino buddy back in Wiarton again.”
In 2022, prediction morning was held with Willie’s understudy making the prognostication, but the usual festival events were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the prediction morning was held virtually and paid homage to Willie’s origin story which involved Mack Mackenzie tossing his wife’s white fur hat in the snow in 1957 and pretending it was a groundhog.
But the absence of an actual groundhog that year did raise questions about Willie’s health, and whether or not the groundhog had died.
Eventually, the Town announced the albino groundhog had indeed, passed away. He was replaced in 2022 with a brown understudy.
Groundhogs live an average of three to five years in the wild, but reportedly can live longer in captivity.
In 2017, another Willie died and the Town held a public funeral. That Willie was reportedly 13 years old.