Wiarton Willie
Canada’s Wiarton Willie emerges from his burrow on February 2nd, and, if he doesn’t see his shadow, an early spring is predicted. If the groundhog sees his shadow, winter will last another six weeks.
But our nation’s prognostications are not limited to rodents.
Sure we could use thermometers, barometers, psychrometers, anemometers and various other ometers.
But we Canucks like to do things in the most unorthodox fashion possible.
Meet Gus Wickstrom of Tompkins, Saskatchewan.
Gus predicts the weather using pig spleens.
A pig spleen costs him two or three dollars. Not the thousands of dollars Environment Canada spends on all those ometers.
Word has it that his forecasts are 98.5 per cent correct. That’s more accurate than Environment Canada!
How does he do it?
Allow me to exspleen.
Gus holds a freshly butchered spleen up in air, turns it upside down, and looks at it from all sides.
Then he bites into it.
If the spleen is soft, it means warm weather. If the spleen is firm, that means cold weather. A bumpy spleen means a storm is coming. Gus also factors the thickness of the spleen into his forecast.
Gus, of Scandinavian ancestry, learned the art of pig spleen predicting from his father. It’s been passed down in his family from generation to generation over 200 years.
Doppler be damned!
Bite that, Environment Canada.
And here’s how the Irish (bless them) forecast the weather…
Photo by SID (Stupid Irish Daddy)
