Cosmic Connections
North Country Eclipse Brings Visitors and Community Together
On Monday, April 8, 2024, at about 3:25 p.m., darkness will slowly descend on the Adirondack region: the birds will call out and swoop down from the sky as their hearts skip a beat at the sudden arrival of dusk. One by one the crickets will begin their singsong, and spiders will tug and pull frantically at their webs as if night has suddenly arrived.
For about 3 minutes and 34 seconds of totality, the solar eclipse will trick wildlife into night-mode and leave humans in awe.
The 2024 event will begin over Mexico’s Pacific coast and stretch diagonally over the United States, hitting Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, with the path of totality passing directly through the Adirondacks, Plattsburgh and the Champlain Valley.
The eclipse won’t make its venture across North American skies again until about 2044, and Plattsburgh may not be in the path of totality again for some hundred years. This is a once in a lifetime experience for many people, and it is well worth the hype.
Take it from Ed Guenther, an active local astronomy hobbyist in Plattsburgh, whose interest in the stars and planets blossomed from his fascination with his grandfather’s experience as an air navigator in World War II. He learned that the Army Air Corps navigated across the Pacific ocean by using visual, celestial navigation tools.
His grandfather would teach him about the stars during their time sitting at a duck or deer hunting blind, during which Guenther got a bit fidgety, being just 4 years old.
“That’s kind of how I got started. So 57 years later, I still do that. I guess I’m kind of old fashioned,” Guenther said.
Now, after learning from other astronomers in the field, he commits himself to public outreach, both locally and across the country.
Guenther had the opportunity to see the 2017 total solar eclipse in Madras, Oregon. He noted the impact the phenomenon had on other viewers, who just couldn’t contain their excitement.
“In the prelude to us actually getting totality, as the sun was going away I kind of heard this rumble and then this roar just swept over the town – the town the size of Plattsburgh – but there were 250,000 people inside the city limits for this eclipse, and that roar was just people cheering as totality happened,” Guenther said.
Although Guenther has a fascination with astronomy, he also values the human connections that observing the skies can offer. He said he recorded about five minutes of video footage of the 2017 eclipse, but shot some 200 photos of the people watching the eclipse with him. He plans to take the same approach when he documents the 2024 eclipse.
There will be no shortage of people flocking to the North Country pursuing the eclipse. Plattsburgh Town Supervisor Michael Cashman expects many visitors from the Albany area and Montreal. He also knows many local residents plan to host family from away that weekend.
Cashman, who has had a countdown to the total solar eclipse running on his phone for about five years now, is confident in Plattsburgh’s ability to welcome a surplus of travelers, with the town having over 1,000 hotel rooms.
The town supervisor emphasized that the North Country is the ideal viewing location for the astronomical event, not only because of its lack of viewing obstructions in the sky, but because of its richness in attractions.
While residents may be able to conveniently step out of their houses and onto their front lawns to view the eclipse, visitors should take advantage of their time in the North Country, and they will quickly see why so many people live here.
“What I’m really hoping is that folks that are coming to the greater Plattsburgh region for the first time will learn more about us than just the total solar eclipse, and be inspired to stay for a couple days, or have such a great experience that they’ll want to come back,” Cashman said.
Even former Plattsburgh natives will be making the trip home, like Josh Labounty, who was born and raised in Plattsburgh. But he and his fiance of over two years, Jared Canright, have an additional event on their calendar that day: their wedding.
The couple, currently living in Seattle as graduate students in physics, said the idea started off as a somewhat serious joke about getting married in Oregon during the annual solar eclipse in October 2023. But while on vacation in May of 2023 with Labounty’s family – who still reside in Plattsburgh – his mom dished the couple some subtle encouragement to get the wedding plans rolling.
“His mom took the opportunity to bring up the conversation once, or twice, or a dozen times,” Canright said.
But she had an even bigger idea. She suggested they get married during the total solar eclipse in 2024.
The more they continued to toy with the idea, the more it became less of a joke and more of a plan.
“By the third or fourth time we joked about it we were like, ‘Oh, no, we’ve stopped joking, we’ve just started planning a wedding,’” Labounty said.
The couple will be exchanging vows at the point of full totality at the ceremony at the Valcour Inn and Boathouse. They, like all eclipse viewers, just hope the weather is on their side and skies are clear.
“If that is the only thing that goes off without a hitch that day, I think it’ll be a win,” Labounty said.
Clear skies or not, the idea that a celestial event occurring so far away is going to bring together so many people from many walks of life, is a special affair within itself.
“I think there is something very unifying when folks can come together in community and have a shared experience,” Cashman said. “So I look forward to having a shared experience with residents of the region and visitors alike, as we look to the sky and see this beautiful, natural occurrence.”