'Nothing that compares': Economic spinoffs from eclipse worth the hype for N.B. communities

Early indications suggest the hype for Monday’s total solar eclipse was worth it in New Brunswick.

“There’s absolutely nothing that compares to what I’ve seen this past weekend here,” says Paul McGraw, an organizer with Miramichi’s economic and tourism department who’s helped run local events for close to 30 years. “It was just phenomenal to see the breadth of the people we had, let alone the numbers.”

Eclipse chasers who ran out the clock weighing weather forecasts and totality times were arriving in Miramichi on Monday afternoon, just ahead of the spectacle.

“We had private charter jets that were landing at the airport and sitting on the tarmac,” says McGraw. “The farthest we know came from the San Francisco-Oakland area in California.”

McGraw says a conservative estimate of about 12,000 people watched the eclipse at Miramichi Airport, where a running tally was kept of where drivers were coming from.

“You see people from all over the northeastern United States,” says McGraw. “On the viewing day we had one vehicle that registered from western Australia.”

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Betty Lanigan was in Miramichi for the eclipse, visiting from Ireland on Monday. 

“We were going to go to San Diego and maybe just follow the path of totality and see which would be the best,” Lanigan told CTV on Monday. “And when we followed the path and realized it was going to come up through New Brunswick it was a no brainer, we had to come here.”

Andrew Harvey, mayor of the District of Carleton North, says Monday’s eclipse was the biggest event to ever happen in the rural region.

“We’re very fortunate we were able to showcase the area, and work with other communities too,” says Harvey. “We worked with Woodstock, Hartland, Southern Victoria and Tobique Valley on this initiative.”

The influx of visitors was easy to spot in several communities.

“I saw license plates on the street here from Nova Scotia, from Maine, from New Hampshire, from Maryland, from Pennsylvania, they were from all over,” says downtown Woodstock business owner Woody Milbury.

Hotels in Miramichi, Woodstock, Florenceville-Bristol, and Fredericton reported no-vacancy on Sunday and Monday.

Several New Brunswick communities held days of special eclipse related events. 

Mary Ellen Hudson of Tourism Fredericton says events under the city’s ‘EclipseFest’ banner were at capacity, calling it “a great early kick off to our tourism season.”

In Miramichi, McGraw says the immediate economic effect of accommodations and meals could help cover losses from this past winter’s rough tourism season, while setting the stage for summer “to take off with a bang.”

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Crystal Garrett and Alana Pickrell

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