Sigourney, Diamonds and a Big Goose

April 20, 2007 2:43 PM

First a goose, then Sigourney and now really old diamonds. A diamond field in Northern Ontario, Canada has turned up a 1.5 Carat diamond from what is believed to be the world's oldest diamond deposit at 2.697 billion years old. The diamonds were found, of all places, just 12 kilometers from the small town of Wawa, Ontario (www.wawa.cc) - previously famous for being home to the world's biggest goose and filming location of the 2006 film Snow Cake starring Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver.
posted by empatterson (37 comments total)

Wawa, big things (and a new Tim Hortons)...
posted by acro at 2:53 PM on April 20, 2007

I'd rather have a hoagie from the other WaWa.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:58 PM on April 20, 2007

That's billion. With a "b." Understand, creationist wackos?
posted by spitbull at 3:00 PM on April 20, 2007

Let me get this straight: Wawa is actually Canadian? I am never going to see Pennsylvania the same way again.
posted by parmanparman at 3:01 PM on April 20, 2007

parmanparman... (nice nick to type btw) Wawa is Definitely Canadian. (On the Trans-Canada Highway, North Shore of Lake Superior).
posted by acro at 3:08 PM on April 20, 2007

Wow(a). I've spent a lot of time in Wawa, but didn't know they were mining diamonds around there. I spent 3 summers working a few k's south of there, and days off, mail runs, grocery runs, beer runs, stag and doe dances, were in Wawa. As Northern Ontario towns go, it's quite pleasant, though it also has a reputation as being a hitch-hiker's black hole, a place where you can be stranded for days at a time trying to thumb a ride.
posted by Flashman at 3:16 PM on April 20, 2007

Wawa is also a great choke point in the ground transportation of BC bud to Southern Ontario. Best place for the fuzz to stop the buzz.
posted by srboisvert at 3:20 PM on April 20, 2007

Whenever I've driven across the Great White North (three times so far) I've made it a point to stay in Wawa. It is a stunning cosmopolitan metropolis that offers anything you could desire.

The lights attracted me. The lights.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 3:30 PM on April 20, 2007

On the northward trip, Wawa's ~75 kms from the next town -- White River, of 'Stuck in White River'
posted by acro at 3:36 PM on April 20, 2007

...Thats a song right? Clapton? Gordon Lightfoot..??
posted by acro at 3:37 PM on April 20, 2007

Little known fact. Town was named by Helen Keller. True story.
posted by miss lynnster at 3:38 PM on April 20, 2007

I recall asking whether that was the largest goose statue in the world. I was told it wasn't.
posted by kickingtheground at 3:39 PM on April 20, 2007

(Fingers crossed.)
posted by miss lynnster at 3:39 PM on April 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

AP: Barbara Walters has been offered a multibillion dollar contract to be the voice of an Ontario town —

"Wipley, kawats, and a wedgie ... Wawa wocks!"
posted by rob511 at 3:53 PM on April 20, 2007

Little known fact. Town was named by Helen Keller. True story.

Wawa gets its name from the Ojibwe word for "wild goose", wewe. That's exactly how Canada geese sound.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 3:57 PM on April 20, 2007

Wasn't there also a cartoon, Wewe's Kids? Maybe that was animated there.
posted by davejay at 3:58 PM on April 20, 2007

Ok, so no, you're absolutely right. During the final scene of the Miracle Worker, Patty Duke was not re-enacting Helen Keller's naming of a Canadian town. Ya got me.
Oh my Lord. Someone actually FELL for that joke.
posted by miss lynnster at 4:28 PM on April 20, 2007

Sigourney? Weaver?
posted by autodidact at 4:43 PM on April 20, 2007

Oh, miss lynnster, YOU ARE A BRAT!
posted by Turtles all the way down at 4:51 PM on April 20, 2007

Wow miss lynnster; hook, line, and sinker. I'm impressed. I didn't think anyone would take the bait either.
posted by quin at 4:52 PM on April 20, 2007

Mam, Canadian Wildlife Service. I'm going to have to ask to see your license. That's plainly your hook in his mouth.
posted by bonehead at 5:23 PM on April 20, 2007

acro: Maybe you're thinking of Long May You Run, by Neil Young? In it, he describes being stuck in Blind River, although the line is "It was back in Blind River, 1962, when I last saw you alive".

Blind River is a mite closer to civilization that Wawa I would say, although, they are arguably in the same neighbourhood.
posted by Richat at 5:31 PM on April 20, 2007

I don't know, Officer bonehead. The catch is clearly longer than a meter.

Like you'd miss the chance to type Officer bonehead.
posted by eriko at 5:55 PM on April 20, 2007

So it turns out there are diamonds scattered all over Canada, eh?

Sure is a lot of carbon locked up in this ol' earth.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:08 PM on April 20, 2007

Mam, Canadian Wildlife Service.

(...haunting loon music...) "For more information on the Canadian Widemouth Sucker, please contact the Canadian Wildlife Service...in Ottawa."
posted by Turtles all the way down at 6:13 PM on April 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

*with apologies to w-g p, who seems to have launched a joke despite having done nothing but assert the real origin of "Wawa."
posted by Turtles all the way down at 6:17 PM on April 20, 2007

So, um, the first two links are the same, are they not? Where's the scoop on the 1.5 carat (is that supposed to be a big deal?) diamond?
posted by beagle at 6:20 PM on April 20, 2007

miss l., I just blew Two-Buck Chuck Shiraz out my nose. Fortunately this ancient British pre-Windows-era keyboard could've survived the Blitz.
posted by pax digita at 6:31 PM on April 20, 2007

Jesus. I haven't been so humiliated since Fern Smeltzer made me say "Under where?" in grade two. Really. True story.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:02 PM on April 20, 2007

Sigourney Weaver is hot! The rest of this thread has kinda lost me.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:17 PM on April 20, 2007

No worries ZachsMind... I just made a really, really bad & very dated joke. That's about the long & short of it. ;)
posted by miss lynnster at 12:04 AM on April 21, 2007

I'm just hear for the Sigourney.
posted by hermitosis at 8:27 AM on April 21, 2007

And still half awake, it seems.
posted by hermitosis at 8:30 AM on April 21, 2007

Sometimes a Sigourney is just a Sigourney.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:02 AM on April 21, 2007

It is actually pretty cool that you know where the name comes from w-g p.

But then, I'm the kind of person who finds a small measure of satisfaction in that I know what Oconomowoc and Waukesha are named for.
posted by quin at 11:30 AM on April 21, 2007

Its all about really old diamonds. And lots of them. The oldest diamonds ever found in the world. And found in, of all places, Wawa! By an old prospector just'a'panning and'a sluicing.

"There's no place in Canada that I know of where you can actually drive up to a rock outcrop and find diamonds," said Dianor president John Ryder about the bedrock ... "When you can go to a place you can drive to, literally get out of your vehicle and walk on solid rock and you've got diamonds all along it - that's spectacular and it didn't cost us $20 or $30 million to find that, it was already discovered by the prospector."

This area, dispite its recreational value and natural beauty is struggling to survive against a lost lumber & iron ore industry, unemployment and an outmigration of youth, and soon the whole world will know Wawa for its diamonds instead of a big goose.

Maybe it is really just about hope. But I am sure the goose will stay, even after the Sigourney has gone.
posted by empatterson at 8:54 PM on April 21, 2007

Richat: "Blind River is a mite closer to civilization that Wawa I would say."

And by "civilization," you mean Sault Ste. Marie?
posted by bicyclefish at 9:13 PM on April 22, 2007