A quiet Maine County braces for the Eclipse. ‘Where are 20,000 people going to pee?’

For generations, visitors to Maine have headed east, to the rocky coastline, with its lobster boats and crashing waves, or west, to ski resorts, peaceful lakes and mountains. Few have ever set foot in Aroostook County, a remote northern expanse where residents — not without reason — tend to suspect that no one south of Bangor even knows they exist.

So the news that “the County,” as it’s known in Maine, would be right in the path of totality for next month’s solar eclipse — making it a destination for potentially thousands of visitors — has stirred mixed emotions at this proudly humble place. Some in the county are used to ceding the spotlight to flashy places like Bar Harbor, and aren’t sure how they feel about its fleeting status as a place to be.

“It’s a little new for us here, so it’s stressful,” said Lindsay Anderson, manager of Brookside Bakery in Houlton, a city of 6,000 bordering Canada, where the eclipse weekend plan includes baking. 500 whoopie pies, Maine’s official “state treat.”

Next door at Market Square Antiques and Pawn, a compact store guarded by several mounted deer heads, Tom Willard, co-owner, had his own concerns.

“Where are 20,000 people going to pee?” he asked.

No one knows how many people will travel to Aroostook County for the April 8 solar eclipse, making planning a bit of a roulette spin. Estimates range from 10,000 to 40,000, although attendance may be limited by distance. Extending north beyond the end of Interstate 95 to the Canadian border – where it is little-known combat-free Aroostook War raged from 1838 to 1839 – the county is about the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. Caribou, near the northern peak, is 400 miles north of Boston, a more than six-hour drive.

For eclipse fanatics, it might not matter. Dan McGlaun, 60, who has seen 15 eclipses and runs away a website dedicated to next month’ssaid he once traveled to French Polynesia and walked “eight miles through banana plants into the middle of nowhere” only to be — by his own estimation — the only person on Earth in the path of the eclipse for a second and a half.

“Eclipse geeks, we’re an odd bunch,” he admitted.

Northern Maine isn’t the only corner of the country expecting an influx. The path of totality also crosses places like the Ozarks, the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, And sections of South Texas, all hoping to capitalize on the fleeting attention.

In Aroostook County, where potato farms are plentiful and practicality is paramount, stories like Mr. McGlaun’s only add to the general wariness. It doesn’t help that the eclipse will occur during northern New England’s infamous mud season, when thawing earth turns to tire-sucking mud, raising concerns that unsuspecting motorists “from afar” will get stuck on rural roads and need to be pulled out drawn. .

Also not helpful: memories of the last major influx, in August 1997, during an open-air concert festival of the band Phish drew 65,000 fans to a former air base in Limestone, a city of 1,500. Locals who had scoffed at the visitor numbers were caught off guard when the crowds arrived, causing a traffic jam and emptying supermarket shelves. (“Like locusts,” one county resident recalled.)

Conditioned by decades of population attrition, some once again doubted the crowd’s predictions when talk of the solar eclipse began two years ago. That’s when Houlton’s eclipse committee sprang into action, convincing the city to start planning — and taking advantage of the fact that it will be the last American city in the path.

“The biggest challenge was that people didn’t take it seriously and said, ‘What’s the problem, it’s dark for three minutes, who comes here for that?’” said Johanna Johnston, lead organizer of the city’s eclipse events. “We had to explain that it’s nothing you’ve ever experienced, and that it’s an opportunity to show what we can do and what we have to offer.”

Many companies have seized this opportunity. Ivey’s Motor Lodge in Houlton received its first eclipse booking in 2022, the manager said; When the hotel realized what was happening, it tripled its rates for the nights around the eclipse and tightened its cancellation policy. Most area hotels are booked for the event, but Ivey’s still had vacancies earlier this month, possibly because it was charging $650 per night.

Bearing in mind that their 15 minutes of fame will last just three minutes and 18 seconds (the phase of totality, when the moon will completely block out the sun, begins at 3:32 p.m. in Houlton), the eclipse committee has scheduled four days full of festivities meant to seduce travelers should arrive well before the main event – ​​and perhaps even return for another visit.

The city will have six designated “star parks” for eclipse viewing and a team of welcoming “eclipse ambassadors” to provide guidance. To help feed the crowds when restaurants are overwhelmed, several churches plan to offer traditional Maine meals of baked beans and chowder.

Jane Torres, executive director of the Houlton Chamber of Commerce, hired a Rhode Island performing arts company for the occasion, assisted couples who wanted to get married in the city during the solar eclipse, helped arrange a NASA broadcast in a historic downtown movie theater that shows the solar eclipse as it moves across the country, and enlisted her yoga teacher to fill a “metaphysical tent” with tarot card readers and healing demonstrations.

She has also rented 100 portable toilets, a number she acknowledged was a hopeful shot in the dark.

“The challenge is the unknown,” Ms. Torres said.

The unknown that looms largest is the weather in northern Maine in early April. Of the fifteen states on the path of totality, Maine has one of the lowest chances of clear skies – and the best chance of snow – a factor that will likely drive hardcore eclipse enthusiasts, known as umbraphiles, to locations where cloud cover is less likely. (Ironically, Aroostook’s name may come from a native Mi’kmaq word meaning “bright.”)

According to Priscilla Buster, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Caribou, the chance of cloudy conditions at the time of the eclipse is between 60 and 70 percent.

“It doesn’t look good for us here,” she said.

The threat of clouds prompted Lynda Mitchell to cancel her hotel reservation in western Maine — Franklin County, part of which will see totality — and instead book plane tickets to Texas.

“It could be great in Maine, but I just don’t trust the weather,” she said. “I’m not really a bucket list person, but this won’t happen again in my lifetime.”

Still, Houlton’s eclipse committee keeps its chin up. His hopes were recently supported an article describing a ‘cooling effect during eclipse’, observed by scientists, this causes clouds to disappear as the sun dims and temperatures drop.

Kevin McCartney, a retired geology professor at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, will focus on a different sun on the day of the eclipse. That morning, he plans to unveil a new 3D model of the sun at the entrance to the campus, which stands 40 feet tall. It will serve as the new northern terminus of the Maine solar system modela sprawling roadside attraction Installed 20 years ago along 100 miles of rural U.S. Route 1 in Aroostook County, with “planets” spaced at intervals proportional to their actual distance from each other in space.

“Ready to travel the solar system from the comfort of your car?” asks its website.

It is the largest model of this type in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most important tourist attractions in the region. It attracts families and, believe it or not, solar system model enthusiasts, Mr. McCartney said. The new sun, visible from Route 1will be easier to find than the old, two-dimensional one painted on the walls in the university’s science museum — and it will shine even when the county’s sky is cloudy.

“People are always wandering around campus asking, ‘Where’s the sun?’” he said. “Now they can’t miss it anymore.”