Yet another Wiarton Willie is dead. Here's a look at the strange history behind the beloved groundhog

Wiarton Willie, the groundhog who fictitiously predicts the weather in the Ontario town that relies on him as a major tourist draw, is dead — and has been for some time.

The latest iteration of the famous rodent died more than nine months ago, but local officials only publicly acknowledged it this week.

Janice Jackson, the mayor of the small town of South Bruce Peninsula, defended the decision to keep the famous weather-prognosticating groundhog's death a secret for about a year, saying she was protecting the "Wiarton Willie brand."

"Wiarton Willie is everything to Wiarton and South Bruce Peninsula," Jackson said. 

"Wiarton Willie has put us on the international map and we're very, very protective of the Wiarton Willie brand. And we were faced with a conundrum, clearly one that took us by surprise, and we had to plot a path forward the best way that we could to protect our town."

"Timing is everything," Jackson said.

The town has said Willie died of a tooth abscess prior to the last prediction morning, but hasn't specified when, other than it was before its typical hibernation period in 2020.

Rumours of Willie's death had swirled since Groundhog Day after a video was released that showed the mayor tossing a fur hat and making the annual prediction about how much longer winter would last, without the animal in sight.

News didn't surprise Willie's former caretaker

Willie fictitiously predicts whether spring comes early or not depending on if he sees his shadow. The festival occurs in early February as a celebration of Groundhog Day and is a big tourist draw.

According to folklore, Wiarton Willie predicts whether there will be an early spring or not depending on if he sees his shadow. The latest news on Willie didn't surprise Sam Brouwer, Willie's caretaker from 1987 to 2002. After all, it has happened before.

"I had my suspicions Willie was dead," he said.

Brouwer owned Wiarton Willie's Motel and he kept three white groundhogs in an enclosure outside where the public could visit.

"We had them as pets, you could pick them up," Brouwer said Wednesday. "We loved them, but I still have marked fingers and busted fingernails that are not growing out right just from groundhog bites."

Rodent presented in casket, stuffed in 1999

In 1999, when he went to check on Willie ahead of Groundhog Day — there have been many Willies over the years — the rodent was frozen solid, he said.

The groundhog committee then decided to hold a funeral in place of its usual prognostication ceremony, using a white groundhog that had been stuffed years earlier.

The Willie that had died was not fit for the public at the time, Brouwer said.

"The smell was something you wouldn't have wanted to be near," Brouwer told The Canadian Press in 1999. "It would have been a closed-casket funeral."

The stuffed rodent was unveiled on Groundhog Day in 1999 in a casket, to the surprise of the crowd. Children bawled and the news went international. 

To this day, it remains with Brouwer in his attic.

"There's a stuffed groundhog up there, how's that?" he said. "And a coffin."

Tunnel to house groundhogs became a trap

Brouwer said he sold his motel in 2001 and the three young albino groundhogs went to the new owner, who then turned them over to the town.

"I shouldn't talk about this ... But no matter, by the time September comes around, they only seen one groundhog — nobody knew that two were dead," Brouwer said, adding that the dead groundhogs were found in the tunnel, part of which he said would fill with water when snow melted or it rained.

"When they put the tunnel in they didn't vent it, so it became a p-trap, and the groundhogs went to sleep and drowned in there," Brouwer said.

The town did not respond to questions about the deaths of those groundhogs.