Wiarton Willie

A Wiarton resident named Mac McKenzie wanted to showcase his childhood home to his many friends, so he sent out invitations for a "Groundhog Day" gathering.

None of the townspeople knew about a festival, but one suggested he check at the Arlington Hotel, the local watering hole.

The next day, the reporter lamented to McKenzie that he needed some kind of story to take back to justify his expenses.

So McKenzie grabbed his wife's fur hat, which had a large button on the front, went out to the parking lot, dug a burrow in the snow and pronounced a prognostication (which no one remembers).

In the early years, prognostication was provided by the "mythical" trio of groundhogs Grundoon, Muldoon and Sand Dune.

Wiarton Willie's predictive powers are attributed (by his followers) to his situation on the 45th parallel, exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.

The organizers were unable to find a replacement, and instead marked Groundhog Day by revealing "Willie" in a coffin.

Wiarton Willie II was reported as deceased on July 11, 2006, after fighting an infection for the previous month.