Long before Doppler radar and satellite images, residents of Sault Ste. Marie relied on intuition, observation—and sometimes goosebones—to predict the weather

From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:

In 1905, the Sault Star shared the predictions of Elias Hartz, a “goosebone weather prophet” from Pennsylvania. Hartz, after examining the breast bone of a goose, predicted that the coming winter would be long and cold, with severe snowstorms.

He advised people, “Fill your coal bins, and do it early, and you’ll never have cause to regret the advice of the goosebone man.” (Sault Star, October 19, 1905).

Sault Ste. Marie had its own weather prophets, people who used intuition and observation to predict the weather in the absence of modern meteorological aids. Two local men, C. James Pim and W.H. Carney, vied for the position of most reliable weather prognosticator.

Mr. Pim was a prominent figure in Sault Ste. Marie. Born in 1852 to David and Margaret Pim, he moved to Sault Ste. Marie as a young boy. He managed the W.H. Plummer store and dock, worked in the fishing business, ran stores in Michipicoten and Neebish, and even served as the Caribou Island lighthouse keeper for over a decade.

In town, he worked as the Soo’s Town Clerk, then City Clerk. And he had the honour of mailing the first letter at the new Post Office when it opened in 1906, walking in “fat and sassy” to mark the momentous occasion (Sault Star, April 5, 1906).

And then there was W.H. Carney, who arrived in Sault Ste. Marie in the mid-1800s, when he was in his 20s. Carney helped to establish the first agricultural society in Algoma in 1868. He even edited the Algoma Pioneer, the first local newspaper. He was also a staunch Methodist, heavily involved in his church, and a charter member of the Keystone Masonic Lodge. Upon his father’s resignation in 1882, W.H Carney became the new Sheriff, working out of the Old Stone House – a building in which Mr. Pim’s father had operated a hotel.

By the early 1900s, both Carney and Pim were prominent, longtime residents of Sault Ste. Marie. And both served as the two members of the Star’s weather board, providing predictions that often conflicted with each other.

In 1908, they faced off in the Sault Star on the topic of a recent thunderstorm that rolled through. The two had differing views of what the specific sound of thunder meant for the coming spring – whether it was short or long peals of thunder that meant nice weather ahead, and whether the direction the storm came from mattered. Sheriff Carney gave his prediction and rationale; when Mr. Pim was asked to weigh in, he commented that the Sheriff’s methods of prediction were out of date, but insisted that he had not heard the thunder himself and thus could not make a judgment on what weather it would usher in. The Sault Star noted that this was perhaps a diplomatic way of getting out of the weather forecasting conflict, writing, “A real good weather prophet never goes on record” (Sault Star, March 12, 1908).

Mr. Pim continued to hesitate to go on record with clear predictions. On the topic of the winter of 1908-1909, he told the Sault Star, “These amateur weather prophets who are guided by goosebones should be suppressed in the interests of science…. [I]t is not wise to put too much faith in what is handed out by people who tell the newspapers they are prognosticators” (Sault Star, October 29, 1908).

The weather forecasting disagreements between Mr. Pim and Sheriff Carney continued, and they sometimes turned into in-person ribbing. As the Sault Star reported, “Every time there was a drop in the temperature [Carney] would drop into the Fire Hall annex where Mr. Pim takes his justly celebrated observations and works out his calculations, and mention casually that a little hard weather was in sight. ‘Sheriff, it requires a great deal of study to be able to prognosticate weather,’ says Mr. Pim, ‘and only those really experienced along that line should take up the science’” (Sault Star, December 16, 1909).

While there was certainly some good-natured feuding between the newspaper’s weather prophets, there was also some criticism coming from the Sault Star audience.

In February of 1910, Mr. J. Smith from Garden River wrote in to the paper, saying, “The Star’s prestige as a weather forecaster has been seriously injured all over the reservation on account of your man [Mr. Pim] falling down on his February weather. I admit that your man has been able to guess it right a few times. But it’s as I told you once before, – these goosebone [prognosticators] are all in when confronted by real weather. I would suggest that you take on Sheriff Carney as head of the weather staff – for a trial, anyway. He ought to be fast enough to catch a place on a paper that bungles the weather as badly as you have done this spring” (Sault Star, February 24, 1910).

Smith also noted in the same letter that he had “been handing out tips on the weather for a long while” in Garden River.

In their rebuttal, the Sault Star noted that Sheriff Carney was, in fact, on their weather board alongside Mr. Pim. They stated that they still felt they had the confidence of the community when it came to weather forecasts, saying, “We were under the impression that we had made it sufficiently plain that our man was NOT a goosebone prognosticator” (Sault Star, February 24, 1910).

They also speculated that Mr. Smith was the same one who had applied for a position on the weather board. In order to test his weather forecasting skills, they asked what the coming winter would be like, and Smith responded that maybe there would be a heap of snow, or maybe not.

Mr. Pim certainly received his criticism for his incorrect predictions. However, in July of 1911, it was Sheriff Carney’s turn to be in the hot seat – and indeed, Carney even had “thoughts of resigning” (Sault Star, July 6, 1911) from the weather board. It was a particularly volatile start to the summer: at the end of June, it snowed so badly that freighters on Lake Superior had to anchor, and this was swiftly followed by sizzling weather. And apparently, the Sheriff had not predicted any of it.

The Sault Star noted in that same article that they had “no intention of accepting the sheriff’s resignation from the Star’s weather board. We know him to be a sterling prophet, but on account of him fozzling his approach on this summer’s weather, we may decide to put him on minor work for a couple of weeks” (Sault Star, July 6, 1911).

The Sault Star also asked Mr. Pim (“the best weather prophet on the staff”) for his comments on Carney’s failed predictions. He weighed in, “Well, sir… I guess the sheriff feels discouraged. … Gee, but he’s sore” (July 6, 1911).

As for Carney, he fired back, again criticizing Mr. Pim’s unwillingness to go commit to a prediction, saying, “[T]hat’s the trouble with him. He never ties up to any prognostication. He waits till the weather gets by before he puts himself on record” (Sault Star, July 6, 1911).

With the Sault Star moving from a weekly to a daily newspaper in 1912, an article ran outlining the weather board, clarifying that Mr. C. James Pim was the Chief and Sheriff Carney the weather assistant. Carney chipped in with some comments on the weather board – and some jokes about who controlled the weather.

“Mr. Pim is a gentleman and a good judge of mineral water, but when it comes to prognosticating weather, well, really, I have to smile…. I may remark that I was sizing up cirrus clouds and examining the bark on fence posts, some time before Mr. Pim arrived in the Sault. I really can’t see why the Star should not promote a man who has made good in the weather line if I do say it myself. We haven’t had decent weather for the fall fair, except in one notable instance, for several years. And whose fault is it? You know as well as I do. There’s only one man who could be to blame, and it ain’t me. And look at the hard winter we have had. Who bungled it? Not me” (Sault Daily Star, March 22, 1912).

Mr. Pim fired back, saying, “I have the greatest esteem for my able assistant, but [prognosticating] weather is a science not to be really understood by every gentleman who may think himself qualified for the job. Why confound it… the Sheriff is only a wishbone weather prophet anyway, and has never taken the full course. I have tried to give him a show. Didn’t I turn over to him the job of handing out the weather for the Methodist Sunday school picnic three years ago – I think it was three years ago, – and what kind of job did he make of it? It rained like sixty. Then you remember the awful mess he made on the weather for the fall fair year before last. I only wish I had a reg’lar weather prophet to help me out once in a while” (Sault Daily Star, March 22, 1912).

Less than a month later, Mr. J. Smith resurfaced with a new letter to the editor on the subject of weather forecasts:

“You doubtless have noticed coming from the direction of the Garden River Indian Reserve a loud, hoarse laugh that started about the first of the year and grew in volume as January advanced. That was me. I am the weather expert (not prophet) who applied to you to catch a place on the Star’s weather board some time ago when in place of me you preferred to accept a couple of gentlemen who may know a good deal about being clerk for the Soo and running a sheriff’s office, but who seem to be at sea when it comes to handing out a reliable brand of weather.”

Smith went on to cite weather predictions that ran in the newspaper – and how wrong they turned out to be. He accused the weather board of “monkeying with a science of which they seem to be ignorant” (Sault Daily Star, April 5, 1912).

The weather board responded, “This man, Smith, has been laboring under the impression for some years that he is a weather prophet, and we have had occasion to turn down his application for a place on the board on five separate dates.”

The letter went on to describe other applications they had received ahead of Smith’s, including one from a K.C. and Crown Attorney, presumably Moses McFadden.

The letter continued, “We are unanimously of the opinion that Smith, who, we are informed, relies mostly on the sound of the whistle on the 4 o’clock train for his weather, should take a course under the Sheriff’s supervision. In this way, he might get the more elementary rudiments of the Science. He ain’t needed on this board just yet” (Sault Daily Star, April 5, 1912).

Not deterred for long by this response, Mr. J. Smith wrote back to the Sault Daily Star five months later, in a letter titled “Garden River Man Says That Weather Board is Punk.”

As he wrote, “Well, I suppose the extraordinary brand of weather your alleged Weather Board has been providing for this district for the past few days has even convinced you that your alleged board is one of the worst ever. If it doesn’t, then your head should be looked into. Gee! did you ever see such a fist of anything! Talk about bum work! … Of course, I don’t blame the sheriff, as he is only a goose bone weather prophet anyway. … [Y]ou can bet, Mr. Editor, that unless you get a certain highly esteemed expert from the Garden River Reserve on your board to do your weather prognosticating your Weather Board will keep on making trouble for everybody. I may say we have lovely weather on the reserve now, thanks to my efforts. … Give my respects to the sheriff” (Sault Daily Star, September 7, 1912).

It’s not clear what happened to the Weather Board. Pim died in 1914 (with the July 28, 1914 edition of the Star describing his funeral procession as the “largest … ever seen in the Sault”), and Carney in 1917.

Modern advances mean that you’re unlikely to hear a meteorologist called a “goosebone prophet” in the newspaper – or to hear them defend themselves, saying that they are no such thing.

This article was written using information compiled from the Sault Star Collection at the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library.

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