go: time: misleading "zoneinfo.zip: no such file or directory" error when trying to load non-existent timezone

Please answer these questions before submitting your issue. Thanks!

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

go version devel +be855e3f28 Mon Jun 19 23:26:32 2017 +0000 linux/amd64

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOEXE=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="linux"
GOOS="linux"
GOPATH="/home/dieter/go"
GORACE=""
GOROOT="/home/dieter/code/go"
GOTOOLDIR="/home/dieter/code/go/pkg/tool/linux_amd64"
GCCGO="gccgo"
CC="gcc"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/tmp/dieter/go-build409613068=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches"
CXX="g++"
CGO_ENABLED="0"
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"

What did you do?

> cat main.go
package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"time"
)

func main() {
	tz, err := time.LoadLocation("America/New_York")
	fmt.Printf("New_York %q %q\n", tz, err)
	tz, err = time.LoadLocation("America/New_Yaark")
	fmt.Printf("New_Yaark %q %q\n", tz, err)
}
> cat Dockerfile
FROM alpine
RUN apk add -U tzdata
COPY main /usr/bin/
ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/bin/main"]

go build -o main
docker build .
docker run ea1f31431e4d

What did you expect to see?

New_York "America/New_York" %!q(<nil>)
New_Yaark "UTC" "can't find timezone America/New_Yaark or something"

What did you see instead?

New_York "America/New_York" %!q(<nil>)
New_Yaark "UTC" "open /home/dieter/code/go/lib/time/zoneinfo.zip: no such file or directory"

note that when I run it on my host which does have a zoneinfo.zip I get:

go run main.go
New_York "America/New_York" %!q(<nil>)
New_Yaark "UTC" "cannot find America/New_Yaark in zip file /home/dieter/code/go/lib/time/zoneinfo.zip"