Magog, QC
As I’ve previously written, it has been my goal to finally cross off a bucket-list item of mine, a total solar eclipse. This one has been on my radar for several years, and I was willing to travel anywhere from the Ohio/Indiana border to the Maine/New Brunswick border in order to experience it.
This was something I’ve always wanted to see, and I’ve seen countless pictures and videos of solar eclipses over the years. Many of them are just like the pics I took, and many are far better. Ultimately, I thought I knew what to expect. The reality was that I was completely blown away; it was absolutely stunning, and I must admit that I have been struggling to come up with the right words to describe this experience. It’s the reason for the delay in writing this post.
Being the weather geek that I am, in planning this trip, my biggest concern was potential cloud cover. Statistically in April, the northern half of the US has a much greater chance of clouds compared to the deserts of Mexico and West Texas. Unfortunately, it wasn’t realistic considering the fact that I will be departing for Bermuda less than a week after the eclipse. Logistically, I couldn’t justify the trip. I had decided that the farthest southwest that I could travel would be to my sister-in-law’s house in Oxford, Ohio. So, I had to take my chances with the northern extent of the path in the U.S.
Narrowing Down a Location…
Ohio was Becoming Unrealistic.
I had been watching the weather models for predicted cloud cover and precipitation constantly for the two weeks leading up to the eclipse. About a week out, the models began to come to a consensus that Texas and the Midwest were going to be cloudy, and the best chances were the Northeast, which was completely opposite to what statistically happens in April. Much to my wife’s dismay, Ohio was becoming more and more questionable. Sucks, because it was ultimately my first choice. They had the longest time in totality at just under 4 minutes along the center line. Of course, that would mean abandoning my sister-in-law and her family since they had a precious minute less.
Another thing to consider was the general timeframe we had to travel. Ohio for us is 12 hours away. Houlton, Maine is at least 7. My son doesn’t have classes on Mondays, but has his first class on Tuesday at 8:30am. My wife wasn’t thrilled about taking the time off, but was OK with taking that Monday off. They both were hoping that if we went to Ohio, we could leave immediately after the eclipse, and be back on Tuesday morning. We would be travelling home along the path of totality from Western Ohio all the way to just past Syracuse, NY. While it was my thoughts that the majority of traffic would be heading away from totality back towards the major metropolitan areas, I knew that traffic was still going to be a big, big issue. I didn’t think Ohio was possible considering the timeframe we had to work with.
With the eclipse happening on Monday Afternoon, I figured I had to make a decision (and possibly leave) on the Friday afternoon prior, or even Saturday morning. The good news is that the forecast models were really pretty consistent in saying that the farther northeast one was, the better weather they’d have.
Maine?
I have family that live on East Grand Lake in Orient, Maine, which is a beautiful lake that shares borders New Brunswick. Sadly, we haven’t been up there in years since my parents sold their house on the Canadian side of the lake. The lake is stunning. I still do have relatives that own property up there, and I have a cousin that I knew would be there. So, we had potential lodging up there. Orient lies about 30 miles south of Houlton and was at least 40 miles from the centerline of the eclipse, where the time in totality was the longest. Orient would have only 2:43 in the dark, and while I could have driven north, I was afraid of how it would look to possibly bail out on my potential hosts, whom I knew were going to enjoy the event right on the lake even though totality didn’t last as long. Also, the only real way to get to Northern Maine is I-95. Even though it is only 7 hours away, I envisioned a complete traffic mess trying to get back home.
Niagara Falls?
I must admit, I felt pretty good about having a 1200+ mile window, with family-provided lodging on either end. I figured that anything that was in between those extremes, from say Erie, PA to Western Maine was just a daytrip away. I knew traffic would be bad, but as the weather was looking less than ideal in Ohio, I began to fully comprehend just how horrific traffic could potentially be on our way home. I was reading up about people who saw the 2017 eclipse and their traffic nightmares. In 2017, the eclipse traveled from Oregon to South Carolina and 12 million people lived along the path. Almost 32 million people reside within the totality path of 2024, and an additional 150 million people live within 200 miles of the 2024 eclipse. This one was going to be much, much worse from a traffic perspective.
I contemplated for a moment how amazing it would be to view the eclipse from Niagara Falls. The centerline cuts through Buffalo, just to the south of the falls. My main problems with Niagara Falls were that lodging was already long-gone, and the traffic was going to be a complete nightmare. The Canadian side of the falls averages 14 million visitors per year, and they were predicting over a million on April 8th! While it would have been amazing, I would have needed to make my plans at least a year ago. Whoops.
Settling down on VT/NH.
The cloud cover forecast was clearly indicating that the farther east one went, the clearer the skies. The weather models were very consistent with high clouds creeping up from the Midwest/Great Lakes region, and were starting to trend towards even the Adirondacks being questionable. Burlington, VT was pretty much my western limit. Northern NH is very rural, and I didn’t feel had the infrastructure that I was looking for. Same with Northwest Maine, which was even farther away from home. Houlton was always a possibility, but my concern was the traffic getting back. Really, I-95 is the only road back, and it was bound to be awful.
By Tuesday, I was beginning to commit to Northern VT. Lodging was gone at this point, so I had to wonder if it was truly possible to make this a day-trip. I really wasn’t looking forward to spending 10+ hours in my car on the way home. The absolute closest path to totality shot me straight up I-91. The centerline was just about 10-15 miles into Canada at that point, and Newport VT was looking like a good spot. In fact, I knew plenty of fellow weather geek friends that were planning on heading there.
Magog, QC won out.
Since Newport, VT is about 15 miles from the border, I figured I should at least check out lodging in Canada. There was availability in Magog, QC! Unfortunately, I didn’t commit until Wednesday. With the forecast for the majority of the path being crappy, many people were abandoning their plans in Texas and places farther south and booking up north. I ended up losing out on any room for Sunday night. I did book a room for Monday night, though. I honestly felt that a room on Monday night was far more important since the traffic up wouldn’t be that bad, but the return trip would be unbearable. I had no problem driving up in the middle of the night/very early Monday morning and then crashing in my hotel while the rest of the world battled gridlock on their return home.
VRBO House with a friend?
I’ve got an old college friend that I’m friends with on Facebook. While I haven’t spoken with him in years, we share many very similar interests. This happens to be one of them (In fact, he’s far more into it than I am). He runs a website called Backyard Astronomy Guy. Obviously, with a name like that, he’s an avid NASA/Space/Astronomy fan, and I knew that he was really wanting to nail this intercept. He was thinking about staging his eclipse approach in Pittsburgh, and either heading North or West. As the weather looked horrible in those locations, I reached out to him and asked him if he wanted to join me up north. I did find a VRBO house in Magog, QC and he was down with splitting it with me. As it turns out, the VRBO ended up falling through, and he stumbled upon an event at Tupper Lake, in the Adirondacks. Looking at the event, it was absolutely perfect for him. My concern was the weather and hoped that the high clouds stayed south and west.
Here’s a map of VRBO and Air BnB locations across the nation, and the occupancy levels. It’s no wonder that I wasn’t able to secure it.
I will say that I ultimately had clearer skies in Magog, but his images are outstanding. He had an amazing setup and was live-streaming the view from his telescope in 8k. I’ve pulled some of his images for this post. My pics are good, his are fantastic. The YouTube video at the beginning of this post is his.
Magog, QC
My family had the weekend off from obligations, and my wife knew that I was getting antsy with regards to traffic. Again, it was my intention to leave at like 3am on Monday morning, eat a big breakfast, and then get to a viewing spot immediately afterwards. We’re always wary of Moose when driving up north, and it was my wife’s suggestion to leave mid-day on Sunday, so we could make the drive up during daylight. Yes, it was safer. The drawback was we’d have to sleep in the car on Saturday night. The temps looked fine, as it was only predicted to get down to the freezing mark overnight. We could bundle up. I had been down with sleeping in the car, but I didn’t want to even ask my family to partake in that madness. But, since it she was on board with the idea, how could I say no?
Magog is an amazing town on the northern edge of Lake Memphremagog, a large lake that runs 31 miles across the border from Newport, VT into Quebec. Legend has it the lake has a monster called Memphre, similar to Loch Ness, or Lake Champlain. Besides being on the water, there’s also a National Park, and a fairly large ski area. It has plenty of small hotels, and an amazing restaurant scene, which was certainly a bonus. I have discovered some amazing restaruants in French Canada, and I couldn’t wait to indulge in some amazing poutine (among other French culinary staples).
The drive up was uneventful. Traffic was lighter than I would have expected, but there was definitely more traffic heading North than South. We saw several campers, and saw license plates from as far away as Colorado, Montana, and Florida. CT and MA plates dominated the road, though… I topped off my gas tank several times. I didn’t want to have to buy gas across the border, as it is WAY more expensive. Also I was worried about the crowds and traffic heading back and was fearful of gas stations running out of fuel. I was happy to snap a picture of this road sign, just before the Canadian border. We’ve driven past it several times, and we’ve always been too late with the camera. It amazes me that just before the Canadian Border lies the 45th Parallel, meaning that the point is exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.
Crossing the border was a breeze, and before we knew it, we were exploring Magog. I had searched through Google Maps and the satellite view to come up with several potential viewing locations. Obviously I wanted to be right on the lake, looking South. I liked Pointe-Merry Parc and Magog Bay Park. Both had great views to the south, had plenty of parking, and had accessibility to restaurants, etc. I ultimately settled on Pointe-Merry Parc, because there was a McDonalds very close by for potential bathroom/Wi-Fi use.
After driving around to get our bearings, we decided to park and wander around Magog. We ended up stopping into Caffucino, which we thought was just a coffee shop. It turned out, like most places in Quebec, offered quite a menu!
There’s plenty of parking in Magog, and there are a few lots that offer overnight parking. We spent the night in one of those lots. It was pretty cold in the car, but we brought blankets and ultimately survived the night. At 6am, we went to get a huge breakfast at Eggsquis, which I had researched and decided was a good place to “tank up” for the day. I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, because I wanted to try it all. I’ve never eaten cretons before and wanted to give it a try. I found it was basically cold scrapple. It turns out I’m not a fan, Lol.
The parking lot at the park opened at 8am, and since I didn’t know how busy it would be, I wanted to secure a spot as early as possible. There were quite a few cars there already, but was able to park no problem, and I grabbed a great viewing location right on the shore of the lake, unobstructed. We set up our zero-gravity chairs, table, and gear, and eclipse-related snacks, and just hung out for the next 6 hours until the show started. It was fun to watch the park slowly but surely fill up with people.
Looking towards the southwest, a very thin layer of high cirrus clouds were slowly encroaching, but were holding off. Here’s a visible satellite image showing the high clouds just starting to appear of the the Champlain Valley.
As people started filling in the gaps among the crowd, people were choosing spots closer and closer to us. It was pretty neat talking to people who had traveled from all over the world and had seen multiple eclipses. Some of the setups and gear they brought were impressive.
2:16pm, First Contact.
The moment that we all were there had finally arrived, and the moon didn’t disappoint. It showed up exactly as predicted, slowly making it’s appearance onto the disk of the sun. Totality was to begin at 3:27pm, so we had another hour before things started happening quickly. It was fun to watch the moon slowly overtake the sun, eating away at the sunspots visible through the camera lens.
I had seen other partial solar eclipses, and knew that things didn’t really start to get funky until about 85-90% of the sun was obscured. Still, it was fun to watch. It was also pretty neat to see my son experience his first solar eclipse. He kept looking up at the sun with his glasses and was amazed that “The moon was taking a big old bite out of that cookie.”
I was relatively satisfied with my camera settings. These were all taken with my Sony a77, 300mm at f/8 wearing a ND100000 filter, at 1/800 sec exposure. I was using manual focus, and auto HDR. The edge of the sun was crisp, so I figured I’d be fine, even though I really want thrilled about the lack of definition on the sunspots. I didn’t feel that I needed HDR on the partial pics, but wanted to be fast and change as little as possible during the brief totality. I was also running a remote shutter to eliminate me having to stand by the camera every second.
3:27pm. 2nd Contact — Now the fun begins!
At about 3:15, the light started to fade. The sun was still very bright, but it definitely lost some of its edge. Shadows because less defined. Streetlights turned on. The wind started to die down.
With about 5 minutes to go, we could certainly see the Western horizon start to darken more than the rest of the sky. … This was where the cirrus was. I wanted pics of the diamond ring, so I had pulled my solar filter off and replaced the cap. I didn’t really want to mess with the fast exposure yet as the diamond ring (and possible Bailey’s Beads are still quite bright).
As luck would have it, a final gust of wind came off the lake at exactly the wrong time and blew off my eclipse glasses! I couldn’t really watch the sun. I removed the lens cap and just started taking pics. I didn’t get shit. The sky immediately turned very dark and I knew that the race was on to change my shutter speed to a more respectable 1/125 second at f/8.
My wife asked me as I was dialing down the shutter speed if I was getting it. I kinda snapped at her. “I’m working on it!”. Finally got it down to where it needed to be. Then I realized that at some point (probably with the lens cap), I was no longer in focus. I quickly fixed it and started snapping pictures blindly.
Then I looked up…
Holy Shit!!
What just moments before was a blinding yellow sliver of light was now the darker than the blackest black one can imagine. It was the most unnatural thing I’ve ever seen. And, instead of the brilliant yellow glow, there was this insanely beautiful bluish-white Corona extending outward in all directions.
I briefly scanned for the comet but didn’t spend much time on it at all. The clock was ticking! I had only 3 minutes, 28 seconds to take in everything I could, as I wonder if I’ll ever be able to see such a thing again. I saw stars. Planets. And a dusk that encompassed all 360 degrees of the horizon.
I kept squeezing the remote, trying to take as many pictures as I could, but wasn’t really keeping track, to be honest. I was completely spellbound.
Half my time was spent staring around at the landscape and and half the time was spent staring at the black hole wrapped in the Corona.
The moon was traversing the sun in a direction from about 4:00 to 10:00. As totality wore on, more and more of the lower portion of the Corona was exposed. It quickly became obvious that there was an enormous fiery prominence visible to the naked eye. It just added to the splendor.
3:31pm. 3rd Contact.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and the very best things always seem to be so fleeting. It was easy to tell that totality was quickly drawing to a close by watching how quickly the Western sky was brightening.
Still, I was clicking my shutter’s remote as fast as I could to try to catch the diamond ring on the back end, since I knew I blew it on the front end.
I got it.
I was able to adjust the shutter speed and get the filter back on much quicker than it came off, and grabbed a picture of a pretty thin slice. I only took one more picture of the crescent sun.
Most people were packing things up and thinking about leaving. I had made 4pm dinner reservations, which I immediately regretted.
I mean… The back half of the eclipse is the exact opposite of the first half, but much less climactic. I made the reservations days prior, thinking we’d be hungry and tired. We were, but I was in no hurry to pack all our gear. I was still trying to fully comprehend what I just observed.
As a kid, I was a huge space nerd. I have known what happened during a total solar eclipse for as long as I can remember. The physical changes of the world around us. The rapid change to darkness, the stars. The temperature. The birds. The Corona. I knew all of this, but I never put any real thought into the mental and emotional changes that occur when someone observes something so rare and so enormous. I have gotten married. I have had children. Dare I say that this was the most profound thing I have ever experienced? I’m not certain, but I do know that this eclipse is very high up on the list. I can, without a doubt, see how so many of the people I met earlier spent their time traveling the world to follow the path of totality.
Dinner and Hotel Room
We tossed everything in the car and walked across the street and train tracks to Microbrasserie la Memphre, a local microbrewery. I thoroughly enjoyed my New England DIPA and wild mushroom poutine. During dinner I was finally able to ask my wife and son what they thought. They too were blown away.
We didn’t linger long in Magog, as we still needed to check into our hotel, Hotel Cheribourg, which was in Orford, close to the national park and ski resort. It was a pleasant enough place. Not the Ritz, but definitely more than sufficient. I was the first to take a much needed shower, and I was asleep before anyone else got done with theirs.
Traffic and the Return Trip Home
The last thing I did before I crashed, as I was plugging the charging cord into my phone, was to check traffic. It was around 7pm at this point. I snapped a screen shot of a wide view. It looked like the actual path of totality was fine, but all roads leading away from the path and towards the cities were atrocious. Large stretches of I-95 in Maine, I-93 in NH, I-89 in NH and VT, I-91 in all of VT, 87 and 81 in NY, and highways between Erie and Pittsburgh all had significant backups. I slept soundly knowing I made the right call to get a room. Why spend the next 10 hours stuck in traffic, when I could sleep for 7, then drive 3?
Prominences
I’m a planner, and besides how emotionally affected I was, the only other thing that I wasn’t ready for were the visible prominences. People around us were asking what they were. I knew, and I couldn’t believe how easily visible they were with the naked eye. It’s hard to comprehend just how enormous they are. The big arching one in the 6 o’clock position is 3-4 times the size of Earth. …crazy!
I have enjoyed the days that followed, reading other’s accounts. Just about everyone felt as I do; there were few disappointments other than those who weren’t able to be flexible on a location when the clouds became an issue. Others didn’t seem to understand what the big deal was because the world around them didn’t change much where they lived at like 96%. I knew (and tried to explain to others) that totality was everything. A 99% partial is ultimately 0% total, and the difference is literally night and day. People have compared missing totality to driving to Disney World and then driving home once you reach the parking lot. It’s literally just like that… Others complained about the traffic, or that they were sad it was over.
We have our photos that we’re sharing and comparing on social media. …And we have fake pictures circulating around as well. Some of them are over-correctrd Photoshop horrors, others are AI-induced stupidity. Some of the Facebook groups I belong to because so saturated with fake pictures that I started this Facebook group to share and mock these such pictures.
It’s Friday evening. I have tomorrow to do laundry, tidy up the house, and pack. Sunday we leave for Bermuda.
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