Who says there are no groundhogs in Alaska? They're immigrants, to be sure, and in Fairbanks, (just 130 miles south of the Arctic Circle) they sleep a little later in the season than their famous stateside cousins. But the Far North clan is exactly the same species as "Punxsutawney Phil," the famous weather-predicting groundhog who garners all that publicity looking for his shadow in Pennsylvania each February.
Since groundhogs are not native to the sub-arctic, biologists of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game were a bit surprised to find them in Fairbanks. The peace-loving little burrowers first appeared in the Interior in the early 1950s after construction of the Alaska Highway, and the tough ones just kept moving north. They've recently established strong Fairbanks colonies in Creamer's Field, out on Chena Ridge and along Chena Hot Spring Road. You'll also find them along the Parks Highway and the Tanana River, in Nenana, and just about anywhere south where there are sunny slopes and open habitat or deciduous forests (we have a lot of both).
The good news for Alaskans is that because the our branch of the groundhog family hibernates well past Groundhog's Day, February 2, we can send groundhog greetings much later in the season if we miss the traditional holiday. Fairbanks groundhogs snooze until the end of March or the beginning of April, which gives us plenty of time for mailing.
And there's an added plus for Alaskan immigrant groundhogs. They sleep so deeply in our sub-zero cold that (to date) no TV weather person has been able to rouse them for the usual February 2nd prediction interview. We'll gladly leave that for Punxsutawney Phil, who fields those press conferences so well. The bulk of groundhog energy here is reserved for Arctic pioneering. |
