A total solar eclipse sweeps across North America on April 8, 2024, when the moon will cast its shadow across a stretch of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, plunging millions of people into midday darkness.Wilfredo Lee/The Associated Press
There are dark times ahead for southern Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes – and Victoria Kramkowski couldn’t be happier.
As co-chair of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s eclipse task force, she is looking ahead to the celestial event of a lifetime: a total eclipse of the sun that will sweep across the southeastern part of the country on April 8, 2024.
“This is the first time in decades that some of the most populated areas of Canada are going to experience a total solar eclipse,” Ms. Kramkowski said. “It makes this really awe-inspiring wonder of the natural world so much more accessible to so many.”
Several Canadian cities, including Hamilton and Kingston in Ontario, Montreal and Sherbrooke in Quebec, and Fredericton in New Brunswick will be in the direct path of the total solar eclipse, which also bisects Mexico and the United States. Canada’s largest urban centre, Toronto, lies just outside of it. If skies are even partly clear, it is all but guaranteed that the eclipse will be the most-viewed in Canadian history.
One year out: solar eclipse 2024
While much of North America will experience a partial eclipse of the sun next year on April 8th, locations in the United States, Canada and Mexico that fall within the path of totality will have a chance to see the sun entirely obscured by the moon for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds.
CANADA
NFLD.
ONT.
QUE.
PEI
N.B.
N.S.
N.Y.
Path of total eclipse
Penn.
Ohio
Ind.
Ill.
Atlantic Ocean
UNITED STATES
the globe and mail, source: eclipsewise.com;
openstreetmap
One year out: solar eclipse 2024
While much of North America will experience a partial eclipse of the sun next year on April 8th, locations in the United States, Canada and Mexico that fall within the path of totality will have a chance to see the sun entirely obscured by the moon for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds.
CANADA
NFLD.
ONT.
QUE.
PEI
N.B.
N.S.
N.Y.
Path of total eclipse
Penn.
Ohio
Ind.
Ill.
Atlantic Ocean
UNITED STATES
the globe and mail, source: eclipsewise.com; openstreetmap
One year out: solar eclipse 2024
While much of North America will experience a partial eclipse of the sun next year on April 8th, locations in the United States, Canada and Mexico that fall within the path of totality will have a chance to see the sun entirely obscured by the moon for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds.
CANADA
NFLD.
ONT.
QUE.
PEI
N.B.
N.S.
N.Y.
Path of total eclipse
Penn.
Ohio
Ind.
Ill.
Atlantic Ocean
UNITED STATES
the globe and mail, source: eclipsewise.com; openstreetmap
The prospect that tens of thousands of people may decide on that day to drive to where the eclipse is best seen is good reason to start planning ahead, said Ms. Kramkowski, who is drawing on a professional background in government and community relations to help municipalities, institutions, and managers of parks and public spaces to prepare for the event.
“Our goal is to help Canadians experience this in a safe way,” she said. “The message that we’re trying to get across is to decide where you want to view the total eclipse and be in place 48 to 24 hours in advance and to plan to stay afterwards as well.”
Anyone skeptical of how much excitement such an event can generate need only look at a comparable eclipse that crossed the United States from Oregon to South Carolina in August, 2017. From coast to coast, roads leading into the prime viewing areas were jammed for hours before and after the eclipse.
For those who are lucky enough to see one, a total solar eclipse can be a profoundly moving experience. Those who travel the globe to watch as many as they can often say nothing compares to the otherworldly feeling of watching the moon completely obscure the sun from view.
While solar eclipses are relatively common – there are at least two per year somewhere on Earth – most locations will only see a portion of the sun hidden by the moon and the effect is minor.
But when the celestial geometry is just right, anyone standing along a narrow track called the path of totality will experience something quite dramatic. As the sun vanishes altogether, day turns to near-night and the sun’s corona, a ghostly white veil of ionized gasses, can be seen spreading out from behind the moon’s dark silhouette.
Not since the 1970s has such a spectacle been seen anywhere near a major Canadian city. After 2024, the next best chance to do so does not come until 2044 for the Western provinces and 2079 for the Maritimes.
Those who are preparing for next year’s event from a public education standpoint are putting in orders now for eclipse glasses that will allow people to view it safely during its partial phases. (For the up to 3 minutes 45 seconds when the eclipse is total in some parts of Canada, no protection is needed because the sun will be entirely hidden from view.)
“We’re acquiring tens of thousands of glasses,” said Ilana MacDonald, an astronomer and acting outreach co-ordinator with the University of Toronto’s Dunlap Institute. She said the research centre is working with Toronto’s public library system on a plan to distribute the viewers, but added that people should consider ordering their own if they want to be sure they are equipped to see the eclipse. While many suppliers can be found online, only viewers that are ISO approved (an international standard) should be used.
For some seasoned eclipse chasers, the chance of being rained out on a typical April afternoon in Canada is simply too great to risk staying close to home. Many who are determined to see and capture an image of the eclipse have been making arrangements for months to put themselves in the path of totality where it crosses the west coast of Mexico or in south Texas.
Calgary-based astrophotographer and author Alan Dyer counts himself among them. As a Western Canadian, it’s a given he will be travelling to see the eclipse, anyway, he said, so it makes sense to head where clear skies are statistically most likely.
But as Mr. Dyer wryly points out: “Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.”
This weekend offers a case in point. While Saturday’s forecast is generally sunny along much of the path of next year’s eclipse in Ontario and Quebec, Texas is sitting under thick cloud.
But stay or go, it’s worth making a plan, according to Ms. Kramkowski.
“A year may seem pretty far off,” she said, “but it’s not far away when you’re planning for an eclipse.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect years for the next time parts of Canada will experience a total solar eclipse. This version has been corrected.