JACKMAN, Maine — The road to Jackman can be long and sometimes lonely.
But drivers on Monday may have a lot of company. That’s the date western and northern Maine will experience a total eclipse of the sun, an event Maine hasn’t seen for 60 years and won’t see again for even longer.
And, based on experiences in other parts of the country, predictions are that Jackman should expect a lot of visitors.
"So we expect more people to be in town than the busiest snowmobile [season] or fourth of July weekend we have had, and that is before people start driving up Monday morning, the day of the eclipse," Bill Jarvis, Jackman fire chief, and EMS director said.
Jarvis explained that while Jackman is very remote — as close to Quebec City as it is to Augusta — it is located on the center line of the "path of totality" for the eclipse. That’s the area where observers will experience full darkness as the umbra, the darkest portion of the moon’s shadow, passes over the earth.
Businesses in the town said they are preparing for big crowds.
"Phones are still ringing, we are turning people away daily, pretty much," Rick Gourde, owner of Bishop’s Motel, said.
He said eclipse watchers have been booking rooms for more than a year.
"I think the whole town is booked; all the way to Greenville and the Forks, what have you, from every direction," he said.
Jarvis said the overall Jackman area, encompassing several smaller communities, only has 1,100 total residents. But he said the many seasonal camps and cottages in the area have been rented, unless owners plan to come themselves, and that many townspeople have said they expect friends and relatives to come to town as well.
Jarvis said with the number of visitors expected, Jackman's population could swell to four or five thousand during the weekend of the eclipse, not counting those "day trippers" who drive up on April 8.
"That’s where I see the biggest issue," Mike Smith, Somerset County Emergency Management director, said.
"I would roughly guess we typically see four or five hundred cars a day come up (Route) 201, multiply that by ten times, and that’s a factor."
To handle that expected crowd, Jarvis, Smith, and others have been planning for more than a year, and Jarvis himself started planning and researching eclipse crowds three years ago.
The plan Jarvis wrote calls for extra ambulances, extra medical staff in Jackman, and additional police officers in the town and along the two principal roads into town. It includes placing more than two dozen porta-potties around town to have more bathroom capacity, along with adding extra trash dumpsters.
Jarvis and Smith said they have also been working with cell phone providers to expand service capacity for that day in the Jackman area, which has limited cell reception on normal days.
Local businesses hope the eclipse crowd will be a boon, after a lackluster snowmobile season cut into their expected winter income.
"We are thinking it's gonna be really busy, just by the amount of phone calls we’re getting," Meghan Calkins, owner of Smokin Barrels Restaurant, said.
"We will stay open straight through. And days we would normally take off...But we will stay open so there are places for everyone to go," Calkins said.
However, there aren’t enough restaurants or food stores to take care of all of the people expected to arrive, so part of the plan is to stage food trucks near the town office, so there can be enough for everybody to eat.
Still, whether it's food, drink, or fuel, Jarvis advised everyone coming for the eclipse to come prepared. That, he said, includes bringing their own food and water, in case they can’t get to a restaurant or store.
And he is advising people to make sure their gas tanks are full, or close to it before they get to town. Jackman, he said, only has two places to buy gasoline, and those may get overcrowded on April 8.
Smith said the drive home after the eclipse is likely to get crowded and slow, with the possibility of significant traffic delays. He said drivers will need full gas tanks, some food and drink, and plenty of patience to get safely home.
"We have the longest period of totality because as the shadow moves across the country it picks up speed so shorter totality," Jarvis said.
That period of totality will be three minutes and 36 seconds in Jackman, but less in some other parts of Maine.