Sun rises at 6:38am.
Sun sets at 6:18pm.
Moon phase: second quarter, waxing
Moon rises at 4:39pm.
Moon sets at 5:35am.
The Big and Little Dippers
In honour of Black History Month, Night Sky will focus this week’s article on the constellation that showed the way to freedom for hundreds of thousands of escaping slaves from the southern United States to the northern states and on to Canada.
The “Drinking Gourd” constellation is either the Little Dipper or the Big Dipper. Both “dippers” show a similar pattern of stars, each resembling a bent-handled ladle, that is, a dipper or a drinking gourd. Both the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper stay to the north all year round, especially the Little Dipper, whose final star in the handle is, in fact, the North Star, the only star which never varies its location in the sky and always designates north.
Those enslaved persons who bravely ran from the plantations had little knowledge of where to go for safe passage. There was a network of people who would help them, called the “Underground Railroad,” but they had to find their way.
Legend has it that an old sailor named Peg Leg Joe would hire himself onto plantations and make friends with the black labourers, then tell them how to find their way to freedom. He taught them a song which sounded like any other folk song, but actually it had hidden clues about the safe route north to Canada. In the simple lyrics of “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” Peg Leg Joe guided the freedom travellers along Tombigbee River to Tennessee River and up to Ohio Valley. Once they had crossed Ohio River, they were technically free, but could still be caught and brought back to the south. Only in Canada were they truly safe.
You can see the freedom constellations of the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper if you get a clear view to the north. We are so far south here in St. Maarten that these constellations will be low on the horizon, but they are visible. The Big Dipper will be high in the northern sky from 11:00pm until about 2:00am. It will hang “upside down” spilling out its contents onto the Little Dipper directly below. The Little Dipper simply rotates around its handle.
When you see the Drinking Gourd, remember the people who followed those stars to a better life and Peg Leg Joe, who wrote a song to help them stay safe.
If you are out later on in the week, the Big Dipper will be high in the sky a bit earlier each day than written here.
Image for article from Jeanette Winter (Follow the Drinking Gourd, Dragonfly Books).
