This winter, unseasonably warm temperatures have been a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, the warm weather has put a damper on winter festivals like Ice Magic.
On the other hand, the warmer temperatures have made the morning commute much more bearable.
Warm or not, many of us are eager for winter to end.
But Balzac Billy, the “Prairie Prognosticator,” has bad news.
The human-sized groundhog mascot predicts another six weeks of winter. Billy made the startling prediction last Friday at Balzac’s Blue Grass Nursery and Garden Centre.
Onlookers were in high spirits and had high hopes as they chanted Billy’s name.
The crowd cheered as Billy emerged from his den wearing sunglasses.
But their spirits were quickly crushed after Billy pulled out a snow brush from his den, indicating six more weeks of winter.
To no one’s surprise, the tricky mascot was met with boos from the crowd.
But there’s still hope.
Billy is a large groundhog, not a meteorologist.
He also doesn’t have the best track record, with just over a 40 percent success rate since 2004.
The costumed mascot takes after the original Balzac Groundhog Day mascot.
Not Cut Out For The Job
Before he was named Balzac Billy, the original Billy was discovered in the 1970s, when mayor Merle Osborne befriended a Richardson Ground Squirrel, commonly called a gopher.
But a ground squirrel is not a gopher; the gophers that live in Alberta are actually Northern Pocket Gophers; they mostly live permanently underground.
Most Albertans mistakenly think gophers are ‘moles.’
But there are no members of the mole family that live in Alberta.
Confusing eh?
The original Billy, a ground squirrel, was not a groundhog, a gopher, nor a mole, but the squirrel was still mistakenly charged with the duties of predicting the end of winter.
“I’ll go out to his hole and wake him up with a spiked orange juice, and then I’ll let you know what the little asshole’s prediction is,” Osborne’s daughter fondly remembers her mother saying.
But after making several inaccurate predictions over the decades, the original Billy disappeared from public life in shame.
Some locals took offence to the rodent’s predictions and blamed him for the province’s long winters.
Others went so far as to send the poor rodent death threats, forcing the original Billy into an early retirement.
The Emergence of Balzac Billy
That all changed in the late 1970s when Calgary radio station CFAC Program Director Jim Kunkel came up with an idea to get in on the Groundhog Day fun with the official Balzac Billy mascot.
At one point, Kunkel was the boss of Global Calgary’s former weather forecaster, Jimmy Hughes, and Paul Dunphy, a Global Calgary weather specialist.
The trio worked together at CFAC for several years.
Global News reporter Tony Tighe claims Hughes and Dunphy played a big part in Kunkel’s scheme.
“Jim Kunkel thought Calgary was missing out because we didn’t have our own groundhog. So, on February 1, Kunkel said to me and Jimmy”
“‘Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll pretend to send Hughes out in a field by Balzac looking for a gopher,’” said Dunphy.
Dunphy used his editing magic to bring the scene to life.
He pieced together sound effects of birds, wind, and cars on a highway to create the illusion that Hughes was out searching for a gopher over the radio.
“There was no social media then, so we were able to produce this bit and have a lot of fun with it,” said Hughes.
Stuffed Toy Turned Six-Foot Mascot
The first official radio broadcast was in 1978, and the bit went on for years, according to Hughes. Billy made his first physical appearance in 2001 as a stuffed toy.
In 2004, the toy was replaced with the costumed groundhog mascot we know and love today.
Billy held his first official pancake breakfast at the Balzac Community Hall to mark the occasion. The event has attracted more and more people over the years.
In 2011, Blue Grass Nursery and Garden Centre took over the event and continues to make it a success.
“It’s amazing the great turnout we have and the enthusiasm of the crowd. Kids gather at the base—lots of fun. We had about 500 our best year,” Steve Neubauer, breakfast organizer with Balzac Business Community Association, told Red Deer Advocate.
Billy’s prediction is also streamed live online, and over 10,000 people tuned in to watch the mascot in 2021.
“You don’t always get hope from the meteorologists or weather presenters. We need these crutches in a country that’s the second coldest in the world and the snowiest in the world. I think it’s kind of fun. It’s a moment of celebration, and it gets your mind off the winter,” David Philips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, told Global News.
Groundhog Day should be celebrated in good spirits.
At the very least, Billy isn’t receiving death threats for his latest predictions!
