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- PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (Reuters)
- The weather-prognosticating groundhog known around the world as Punxsutawney
Phil saw his own shadow on Wednesday, meaning that winter will last another
six weeks.
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- A week after the biggest winter storm in four years blanketed
the Northeastern United States in snow, thousands gathered before sunrise
in the freezing air of a cloudy February morning to witness Phil's prediction
as part of a 114-year-old annual ceremony called Groundhog Day.
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- Bill Deeley, a local funeral home director who dons a
top hat and tuxedo each Feb. 2 to haul Phil from beneath a maple tree stump
at 7:30 a.m., said it was the 100th time that the ceremonial groundhog
had seen his shadow.
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- ``Phil has seen his shadow, and we expected him to,''
said Deeley, who remarked that Phil had seemed nervous in recent days and
did not want to come out of his hole on Wednesday.
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- According to a legend initially popularized by German
immigrants, winter will continue for another month and a half if the groundhog
sees his shadow on Gobbler's Knob, the site of the annual event. If he
does not, there will be an early spring.
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- Business leaders in this rural town of 6,700 people,
located 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, inaugurated Groundhog Day to
bring notoriety to their isolated community.
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- Groundhog Day draws about 20,000 tourists a year to Punxsutawney
for an all-day celebration marked by parades, ice-carving competitions,
sleigh rides and a variety of food and musical festivals.
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- Phil, who weighs 15 pounds and measures 22 inches in
length, owes his prognosticating powers to an alchemy of victuals that
are alien to the average rodent's diet.
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- ``Phil is just as reliable as any modern day computer.
But he only makes predictions after having a handful of barbecue potato
chips and a spoonful of strawberry ice cream,'' Deeley explained.
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- The New Wiarton Willie Predicts Six More Weeks Of Winter
2-2-00
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- WIARTON, Ont. (CP) - The replacement Wiarton Willie took
his first tentative steps into the limelight Wednesday and spotted his
shadow, forecasting six more weeks of cold winter. The albino groundhog,
one of two at the ready to replace the death last year of Wiarton Willie,
was the first out of his home, thereby earning the title.
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- The rodent was christened before a crowd of hundreds
of people, who watched and cheered when Willie's prediction confirmed that
of Shubenacadie Sam in Nova Scotia, and Punxsutawney Phil of Punxsutawney,
PA.
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- All three saw their shadows, which according to Old English
legend means they run scared, indicating winter is still here for another
month and a half.
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- Last year, just moments before the furry fellow was to
appear for his annual prediction, it was announced the 22-year-old groundhog
had died.
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- The news prompted tears from young schoolchildren who
had shown up to watch Willie emerge from his hole.
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- With no replacement, panicked organizers held a public
funeral for the groundhog instead of the 44-year-old tradition of watching
him emerge from his hole to see if he could spot his shadow.
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- It was later revealed that festival organizers used an
impostor for the funeral because the animal's rotting corpse wasn't found
until weeks after his death.
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- A photograph of the stiff, stuffed albino groundhog lying
in a tiny wooden coffin, a carrot clutched between his tiny claws, made
front pages of newspapers around the world.
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- Indeed, a year after CNN beamed the story, Willie is
now one of North America's best known groundhogs alongside Punxsutawney
Phil.
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- With the North American media focused on the small southwestern
Ontario town this year nothing was left to chance.
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- Organizer had two new recruits ready to replace Wiarton
Willie.
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- The white-haired rodents were found near Ottawa, hundreds
of kilometres east of Willie's stomping grounds.
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- "We couldn't figure out how one of Willie's ancestors
could have gotten that far away but the closest we could figure is that
he had to get educated in his politics first," joked Sam Brouwer,
keeper of the the groundhogs.
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- The legend of Groundhog Day is based on an old Scottish
couplet: "If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there'll be two winters
in the year." © The Canadian Press, 2000
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