Editorial: Seth believed and he was right!

“Totality in Tupper” Chief Organizer Seth McGowan believed from the time he and his family left Hopkinsville, Kentucky where the last total solar eclipse to cross America happened in 2017 that the next event in Tupper Lake would be huge. He was 100 percent correct!

He knew because Tupper Lake sat squarely in the center of the 100 mile plus wide “Path of Totality” that ran diagonally across this nation Monday from Texas to Maine. He also knew Tupper Lake would be a popular viewing spot because it was the only community that hosted an active astronomical organization in the entire region.

Seth said from the start that there were thousands of eclipse purists who would need to experience the entire three minutes and 33 seconds that only Tupper Lake and other communities in the direct center of the path could offer.

The president of the sky center, his board of directors and its staff began planning for this year’s event shortly after his 2017 experience in Hopkinsville. The planning ramped up in a big way earlier last year when Seth asked about a dozen community-minded folks to join him in the final planning process. The group met monthly since March, 2023 to create many fun and scientific events to punctate eclipse weekend here. By the final meeting several Fridays ago, there was a full calendar at both the staging area, dubbed “The Apollo Field” at L.P. Quinn, and at The Wild Center.

The original plan was to place the main staging area in the Tupper Lake Municipal Park, which can be either under four feet of snow or four feet of water on any April 8th. Organizers wisely moved their Apollo Field to the local elementary school, which was guaranteed to be higher and dryer. Other bonuses of the new location, were the empty school for activities inside and its proximity to the planning committee’s main partner, The Wild Center., and.

A short walk across the soccer and baseball playing fields connected the two sites.

The sky center organizers were able to garner support from a number of other organizations here to join in the effort, the lead partner being The Wild Center, which hosted dozens of interesting solar eclipse events inside and outside for its visitors this weekend. The natural history museum which now normally draws 2,000 people here on summer days, saw a good crowd Sunday this weekend which rivaled that and a barn-burner of attendance Monday, when there could have been as many as 7,000 or more visitors- rivaling or surpassing its crowd on opening day two decades ago.

We found the glass-blowing demonstrations by Corning to be very interesting and its trailer performing area drew a crowd every show, which were every 45 minutes.

Seth began trying to sell the magnitude of the crowd that would materialize for “Totality in Tupper” over a year ago. In an effort to help many nearby communities prepare for the influx of eclipse visitors, he gave dozens of presentations to community audiences around region- likely putting thousands of miles on his car and devouring hours and days of his time.

NASA officials learned about all he was doing and made him the official NASA ambassador here.

Incidentally the NASA coverage of the national event was live-streamed here and at one point in the screening before the event’s large audience, NASA announcers offered a shout-out to Seth and his organization’s work and even showed a photo that would be viewed all over the country of the packed crowd of thousands sitting on Apollo Field.

That’s the kind of advertising for our community money can’t buy!

Seth faced many doubters initially, including some in elected office. He was frustrated but he kept pushing.

In the end the town and village boards, as they always do, both came to his aid with the town providing over 50 portable toilets which were distributed around town for the visitors to use. We saw many doing just that this week, so we know they were appreciated.

The village assigned Chief Eric Proulx to the planning committee and he solicited and secured help Monday from the county sheriff’s department and state police to help with traffic control. Eric made a wise move to have an officer at the Park Street/Hosley Ave. intersection all day Monday to help the traffic keep flowing in the most congested area in town, near the two viewing sites. It was also Eric’s idea to close off some of the streets in the east end of the village to only locals and we think that was strategically wise!

The village crew also helped erect directional signs to parking lots around the community.

Town Recreation Director Laura LaBarge was out in the community yesterday taking down all those signs.

The Tupper Lake Board of Education was stellar in its support for “Totality in Tupper,” giving the retired superintendent of schools free rein to use the elementary school and its grounds however he wished.

The board put its very hard-working superintendent of grounds, Pierre St. Pierre, and his crew at Seth’s disposal, to run services outdoors where needed.

The event was blessed with abundant sunshine- both Sunday when people really began arriving in a big way and Monday for the eclipse. Unlike some other communities in the path, Tupper saw cirrus or wispy clouds, which made for excellent viewing of the eclipse, and pleasant to be outdoors doing that. The mercury Monday surpassed 60 degrees F.

During the eclipse we noted that the temperature dropped from 63 degrees F. to about 57- and that was expected.

The event brought many pedestrians to the uptown business district, starting about noon Sunday and continuing right up until show time shortly after 2p.m. when every visitor rushed to the Upper Park Street viewing area or the Wild Center.

A number of us had worried about a potentially tumultuous exodus of cars when the eclipse was over, particularly if the weather was bad, but fortunately that didn’t happen. People meandered back to their cars and quietly drove out of town. There were no traffic jams, to our knowledge.

Some visitors even stayed to dine here Monday evening, before returning home. Some stayed overnight and left yesterday morning.

Local motels seemed to have many lodgers Saturday night and most were booked full Sunday night, according to reports. Many of the short-term rental properties saw lodgers too this past weekend.

Perhaps a key piece of the planning for this event was well handled by ROOST’s Michelle Clement, who arranged for adequate public parking lots around town and a bus shuttle system to carry visitors from those lots to the main staging areas. The entire temporary transportation system seemed to us to go very smoothly. We saw many people riding the buses, which were generously provided by the school district. We saw many happy faces on them. People waited patiently at the many bus stops around town for their time to board.

Through the work of Michelle, the ROOST marketing manager, ROOST provided hundreds of traffic and other signs to guide the many visitors, some with QR codes to detail many of the community’s events, parking places, etc. to those cell phone users. Along with Seth, Michelle was one of the stars of this event.

At 4p.m. Monday, the buses became express buses to the parking areas farthest out, not stopping along the way and so those people could get out of town first and congestion could be avoided. That system seemed to work well- as we saw no congestion.

The whole exit plan was slow and methodical and worked out well.

As part of our cruising of the community which began early Saturday, we took a drive down Park Street a half hour after the eclipse and while there were still many visitors present, everything and everyone seemed cool and calm- another testimony to good planning.

As it turns out there was more parking spaces available than was probably needed- but that’s a good thing. The parking lots on Washington Street- including the new 175-car one the state just built at the end were only about one-quarter way full, if that.

Some folks didn’t venture from there, we noted. A family from Schenectady put down their blanket on the landscaped buffer between the large new parking area for the rail/trail users and the trail itself. They were close to town-leased port-a-jons, sitting in the sunshine and happy to be in Tupper Lake away from the crowds to see this once in a life-time event.

We chatted with a number of people over the weekend about their trip here, and many said they selected Tupper Lake because of how well prepared it was for it.

Michael, a summer resident on Raquette Pond and a volunteer at the Wild Center, told us that during his family’s trip north for the event he was amazed at how many communities there were south of here where there was no visible signs the big event was taking place. Consequently why would someone stop in those places when there was so much going on here, he wondered.

He applauded the overall organizing effort here, as did many people over the weekend.

In our early planning discussions there was two outcomes predicted. If the planning wasn’t done correctly, convincing people to come here for the eclipse could have resulted in disaster, particularly if Mother Nature had conjured up something nasty for us this past weekend. Tupper could have suffered a tourism black mark that could have taken decades to wash off. -Or “Totality in Tupper Lake” could be the kind of event that was enjoyed by thousands who would be so impressed with this community and its organizers, they would long to return some summer very soon, to enjoy all the other many things we offer.

-And fortunately that’s what happened this weekend.

Seth said from the beginning of the planning effort that Hopkinsville, Kentucky planned so well for its banner event in 2017 that it was able to capitalize on it and received robust tourism dividends for years after the eclipse. We think that may happen here, judging by how well “Totality in Tupper” was done.

Kudos to everyone who made it the success it was!

-Dan McClelland