Move over Punxsutawney Phil, Wiarton Willie and Shubenacadie Sam – it turns out the earliest animal to predict the coming of spring in North America was not a groundhog, but a bear.
History professor Alan MacEachern has dug deep into Canadian newspapers from the late 1800s to discover how close we actually came to celebrating ‘Bear Day’ on Feb. 2. On Feb. 3, 1900, British Columbia’s Cascade Record newspaper reported ‘Yesterday was Bear or Groundhog Day.’
The tradition of looking at behaviour patterns of hibernating animals to predict the weather was brought over from Europe to North America in the 1800s. Canadians’ animal of choice was the bear.
“If you think about it, it’s not hard to believe. A bear’s credentials are impeccable,” MacEachern said. “They hibernate; they are found across the country; they are pretty easy to observe, if only at a distance.”
Continue reading at Western University.
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