A halo shines around the sun just before the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 at a train station in Dorval, Quebec, just outside of Montreal.DORVAL, Québec — I needed a big sky, and I was willing to stand outside a remote, chilly train station for hours to get it.happened in the skies here, just outside of Montreal, on Monday . The sights of the bigger city would have been incredible, but so too would've been the deep crowds.
I ended up working as a journalist on the aerospace side; my paternal line has held positions at places like passenger plane regulator Transport Canada, as well as in the Royal Canadian Air Force. I was lucky to have childhood adventures in aerospace, such as flying in a DC-3 to Michigan, running around the Prime Minister's private jet fleet and seeing Santa Claus visit by helicopter.
VIA Rail, our passenger provider, also had numerous trains running on the big west-east corridor where most of Canada's population lives, between Toronto and Quebec City. Audio announcements in English and French cheerfully called out all the little towns these trains would touch, along with arrival and departure times.I sat on the shady side of the station with my husband for hours, leisurely watching the trains go through and glimpsing the occasional groundhog or pigeon.
Armed with my own pair, kindly donated by Western University's space program in London, Ontario, I saw the sun's disk slowly diminish into a thin crescent. Then all turned black. I whipped off my glasses to safely bare my eyes to the heavens. shone brightly, tripling the sun's diameter at the top and the bottom of the disc. Fiery solar-kissed red glowed around the right edge of the moon, and at least two planets popped into view on either side.