Looking to make the celestial event a group experience? Here is a list of places, from Mount Royal to as far as Bishop’s in the Eastern Townships.
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You could, of course, view the total solar eclipse on April 8 on your own. But the experience may well be more memorable if you view it with others.
“People need to be with people; belonging to a group is a fundamental human need,” said Roxane de la Sablonnière, a professor of social psychology at the Université de Montréal.
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“Individuals who weren’t previously part of the same group can quickly forge ties simply because they shared a common experience.”
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A number of group eclipse-viewing events that will give people that opportunity will be held on April 8 and they are free and open to the public. To avoid traffic chaos, organizers recommend using public transit to get to the Montreal venues.
McGill University will hold an Eclipse Fair & Viewing Party from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the lower field of McGill University’s downtown campus, to the right of the Roddick gates, organized by the Trottier Space Institute and the university’s physics department. The event, free and open to the public with no advance reservations needed, includes hands-on activities, demonstrations and booths for people of all ages to explore the science behind eclipses and other elements of solar physics. Free eclipse glasses will be provided at the event, one pair per person.
Free eclipse glasses will also be provided at another McGill event, this one at its Macdonald campus in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, on Montreal’s West Island. The campus is also the home of John Abbott College and the oval lawn in front of the CEGEP will serve as the hub for the event, to run from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. It’s a collaborative effort between the Macdonald campus and John Abbott, with other partners including the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, MDA Space, the Planetarium, the Canadian Space Agency, the Trottier Space Institute at McGill and Let’s Talk Science at McGill. Information kiosks and activity stations will include multiple solar telescopes with special filters, as well as large-scale pinhole viewers. Children will be able to make their own pinhole viewer and to help create a community mural. Organizers figure the crowd will peak between 3 p.m. and 3:45 p.m., with totality happening at around 3:20.
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An event at the Montreal Science Centre at the Old Port is free, with no reservations required: It starts at 1 p.m. with the distribution of 20,000 free pairs of eclipse glasses by a team of Montreal Science Centre educators in front of the Science Centre and at the Jacques Cartier and Alexandra quay entrances to the centre. The Science Centre educators will be on hand to help everyone learn about the science of eclipses, describe to those present what is unfolding and answer questions. Views of the eclipse will be live-streamed, beginning at 2 p.m. from Quebec’s Astrolab in Mont-Mégantic provincial park and from the David Dunlap Observatory in Ontario.
A free event will be held at Parc Jean-Drapeau organized by the Planetarium and Espace pour la vie. Experts from the Planetarium and Espace pour la vie will be on hand and 150,000 pairs of eclipse glasses will be distributed free of charge. No advance registration is required. The site opens at 11 a.m. and programming will run to 5 p.m. Visitors can visit Astres créatifs, giant works of art created by Montreal visual artists, and explore scientific kiosks, Stations éclipes, staffed by teams from the Planetarium and Espace pour la vie. Activities include a talk at 2 p.m. by Innu astronomer Laurie Rousseau-Nepton, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, and a performance of the audio-visual work Le Savoir des Premiers Peuples sur les Éclipses Solaires. At 3:15 p.m., Diane Dufresne will perform a song in the prelude to the moment of totality. She will be accompanied by a pre-recorded performance by the Orchestre Métropolitain and its music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who prepared a space-themed repertoire.
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All 3,500 tickets for an eclipse-viewing event at the Université de Montréal’s Centre d’éducation physique et des sports (CEPSUM) had been snapped up by mid-March. Science journalist Marie-Pier Élie will provide commentary as the eclipse unfolds and teaching and research staff from fields including physics, veterinary medicine and anthropology will be on hand to provide their expertise. Games, physical activity and a photo kiosk will liven things up.
Montreal’s Mount Royal Park is in the path of totality, although viewers will have to bring their own eclipse glasses.
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Further afield for Montrealers but closer to the centre of the path of totality is an eclipse-viewing event on the campus of Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, for university staff, students and faculty as well as for visitors. Visitor attendance is by reservation only: For those who are able to register, eclipse glasses are guaranteed, free of charge. From noon onward, visitors be welcomed to the campus and will congregate around Coulter Field, the university’s football field.
They will be greeted by student ambassadors, be given eclipse glasses and a map. Visitors are invited to explore various kiosks, to be located by the Sports Centre near Coulter Field, where student volunteers will provide information on the topic of eclipses, some will operate solar telescopes and other will demonstrate the use of pinhole cameras as an option for observing an eclipse. Student volunteers will guide visitors on campus tours. If it is cloudy, images of the eclipse from a different location, will be broadcast — possibly the NASA feed or the one from the Mont-Mégantic observatory in Mont-Mégantic park.
It is anticipated that as many as one million people could be travelling to the Eastern Townships to view the eclipse: If you intend to be among them, plan accordingly. And visitors are encouraged to walk to the Bishop’s campus to avoid gridlock once the event has ended.
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