DORVAL, Québec — I needed a big sky, and I was willing to stand outside a remote, chilly train station for hours to get it.
A total solar eclipse happened in the skies here, just outside of Montreal, on Monday (April 8). The sights of the bigger city would have been incredible, but so too would’ve been the deep crowds.
Based on my experiences chasing “Manhattanhenge” twice in New York City last year, bathrooms, elbow room and sightlines would have been at a premium. So when my husband objected to being in big crowds during eclipse planning, I agreed.
Related: I’m taking the train to see the 2024 solar eclipse in Canada. Here’s why I’m riding the rails
My husband and I live in Ottawa, Ontario, which would have just shy of 99% totality on April 8 as the moon passed over the sun. That’s good, but we Canadians wanted more, as we missed a chance to see totality in August 2017 in favor of Coldplay tickets in Toronto. (No regrets, especially as the band mentioned that solar eclipse mid-show.)
Fearing road traffic, at first my husband and I booked tickets to seek totality by train. Our original itinerary brought us west toward Toronto, but the weather forecast got fiercely cloudy for all Ontario stations the day before the big event.
So, late on Sunday (April 7), crowd and cloud conscious, we made a last-minute interprovincial ticket change east, to the only other eclipsed train station near us, aside from Montreal’s urban zone: Dorval. It’s a few minutes away by shuttle from Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, which meant a day of both trainspotting and planespotting was in store for us. And if we were lucky, eclipse-spotting, too.