Marshall Button: In this place, out of this world

Article content

We’re number one! At least we were for a few minutes early last week. Following two weeks of cold, rainy days and overall crappy weather, the skies cleared and the temperature rose. During a few magical moments on the afternoon of April 8, we were the best place on the planet to witness a total solar eclipse.

I remember the last big sun-moon peek-a-boo in 1972. Dad helped me make a viewing device out of a shoe box. I don’t think Dalhousie was in the path of totality during that July afternoon 52 years ago. It was hard to tell by looking through a slot in a cardboard box that was designed to house a pair of steel-toed work shoes.

In the fall of 1972, pop singer Carly Simon released her smash hit You’re So Vain. She sang about (spoiler alert!) Warren Beatty hopping on a private jet to Nova Scotia to soak in the total eclipse of the sun. In a recent interview with Canadian media, Simon revealed she chose the catchy lyric to rhyme with Saratoga, where the vain one’s horse naturally won.

Warren and his sister Shirley MacLaine have strong Maritime roots. Their mother Kathlyn MacLean Beaty grew up in North Sydney, Cape Breton. She was a drama teacher in Wolfville where she met her psychology professor husband Dr. Ira Owen Beatty. The couple moved south to his home state of Virginia, where Warren and Shirley were born. Let that be the last time I use the terms Warren Beatty and virgin in the same sentence.

New Brunswick was unjustifiably snubbed when Niagara Falls was deemed the best place to view the phenomenon. That city declared a state of emergency a week before the eclipse. They were expecting more people than the hotel-rich tourist trap could handle. Niagara Falls was overcast on the afternoon of April 8 (clouds in their coffee, clouds in their coffee.) Folks who went there from the four corners of the earth were disappointed as they stood in the dark staring at water flowing over a gorge at 3160 tons per second. Ho, hum.

But the sun sure shone on our fair province! Visitors from California, Australia, Germany, Ireland and Amherst felt like they won the lottery by coming to this god-knows-where place to witness the rare celestial treat. Canadian cultural icon Colonel Chris Hadfield headlined a gala gathering in Florenceville-Bristol. It was great that oft-overlooked communities such as Hartland, Doaktown, Blackville, Napan and Saint-Louis-de-Kent took centre stage as the very best places to be … in this place.

Moncton was slightly out of the path of totality (what else is new?) so I decided to head up the Rogersville Road to make sure I experienced the full impact of it. It was the only time I hoped to be totalled on route 126.

The experience was worth the 30-minute drive. I pulled over onto a side road in Kent County about 4:15 pm and donned my special glasses. I have to admit to feeling a bit of trepidation when I discovered I was parked between two pickup trucks. One of them had a bumper sticker denying global warming and the other had one proclaiming COVID as a hoax.

I was impressed how these folks faithfully trusted so many scientists’ predictions that the eclipse was going to happen at that precise time and place. I was secretly hoping they give as much credence to scientists believe climate change is real. Nope. They left their pickups idling the whole eclipse!

More than a few of my fellow Monctonians had gone farther north to Miramichi to experience the total darkness. When I want to experience darkness on the Miramichi, I stay home and read a book by Senator David Adams Richards.

The rare and impressive total eclipse lived up to all the hype. If you believe the scientists, the next big one in New Brunswick will occur on May 1, 2079. I’m going out on a limb to predict that I won’t be around for it. Especially if those people I made fun of a couple of paragraphs back happen to stumble across this column, and total me for good on route 126.

New Brunswickers are a little spoiled when it comes to fantastical natural phenomena. Science experts predict that this summer, the northern lights, that dazzling green and purple nighttime spectacle, will provide the best show in twenty years. Our nighttime skies will be shimmering because of a solar maximum – a period of heightened activity on the sun’s surface. It’ll be just like skidooing – the farther north you go, the better the show. Once again, the North Shore wins!

In southern New Brunswick we can visit Mary’s Point for the annual migration of the semipalmated sandpipers in early fall. That’s when two million snowbirds will follow a natural instinct that’s common among some of our human neighbours – to fatten themselves up before heading south for the winter.

There’s ample opportunity to visit Old Sow, an amazing whirlpool off the coast of Deer Island, where you can stare into the swirling water and understand what’s happening with our country’s housing crisis. We have Magnetic Hill, the Tidal Bore, the highest tides in the world near Alma, and the legendary Phantom Ship of the Bay of Chaleur.

With tourist season just around the corner, we can’t forget that catchy tourist slogan some years ago that enticed folks to come for a swim at Parlee Beach. It bragged about “the warmest salt waters north of Virginia!” I dunno, wouldn’t the warmest waters north of Virginia be one foot north of Warren’s Virginia line? And because of sewage runoff, we now understand how Parlee Beach water got to be so warm.

They’re thinking about a new slogan: Pee. .. in this place.

I bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you don’t you, don’t you?