August 23, 2044: the sunset eclipse over Alberta and Montana

In July 1972, about 800 people boarded the Greek liner Olympia in New York and sailed some 900 miles out into the North Atlantic. They had signed up for a week at sea for the sake of about two minutes of darkness on July 10.

Rain started minutes after the ship left port, and the meteorologist on board, Edward Brooks of Boston College, put the odds at 50-50. Overnight the ship pushed through a lightning storm. By morning the clouds had broken up, and Brooks steered the Olympia toward the clear gaps.

As the partial phases began, the crew shut down the engines so the deck would stop shaking under the cameras and telescopes. At totality the sky turned deep blue, Mercury came out, and the ship magician’s pigeons tucked their heads under their wings. One passenger called it “one of the most beautiful and pearly coronas I ever saw.” Captain John Katsikis, a man of fewer words, called it “very beautiful.”

In Nova Scotia, clouds hid the same eclipse. Four months later Carly Simon released “You’re So Vain,” a song about a self-absorbed man who takes his private jet to Nova Scotia for the eclipse. If he really made the trip, he most likely saw a gray sky.

The 1972 eclipse belongs to a family that returns every 18 years and 11 days. On August 23, 2044, an eclipse from the same family crosses North America. By local clocks it is still the evening of August 22, with the Sun low in the west over Alberta, Montana and North Dakota. It will be the family’s last total eclipse.

Why 2044 is the last one

Each eclipse in a family lands in a slightly different spot from the one before. For this family, the shadow has been creeping toward the top of the planet for centuries. It crossed Egypt in 1882 and ran across northern Canada in 1972. On August 12, 2026, it touched Greenland, Iceland and Spain.

Picture someone throwing darts, with every throw landing a little higher on the board. For a long time the Moon’s shadow hit the Earth squarely. In 2044 it only catches the very top of the planet, so the path starts in the far north of Greenland and runs out of daylight in the Dakotas. On September 3, 2062, the next throw misses the board. The dark center of the shadow will pass just beyond the North Pole, and people in the Arctic will see only a partial eclipse.

Our drawing starts in 1882, the first eclipse of the family that scientists watched and photographed. The family itself is much older. According to NASA, it began in 1179, when the shadow passed just below the Earth and gave only a partial eclipse in the far south. Over the next six centuries it climbed across the southern half of the planet and through the middle. Most of those eclipses were ring-of-fire eclipses, because the Moon looked a little too small to cover the Sun completely. We left them out of the drawing because we know them from calculation, not from reliable records.

Its first total eclipse came in 1882. In 1918 the shadow crossed the United States from coast to coast, the last eclipse to do so until 2017. The peak came in 1972, with 2 minutes and 36 seconds. Each return since has been a little shorter, and the 2044 eclipse, the tenth total one, brings about two minutes. After it, the family will keep producing partial eclipses until 2459.

From a Space Force base to the Dakotas

The shadow touches down late in the evening in northwest Greenland. One of the first places to go dark is Pituffik Space Base, the northernmost US military base, about 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The people stationed there should get about 1 minute and 45 seconds of totality, with the Sun hanging low in the northwest.

From Greenland the shadow crosses the Arctic islands of Nunavut and heads south over the Northwest Territories, close to Great Bear Lake. It runs along the eastern edge of British Columbia and sweeps across almost all of Alberta. After Calgary and Lethbridge it brushes southwestern Saskatchewan and crosses into Montana at about 7:42 p.m. Mountain time.

Totality in the evening light

Most eclipse photos show a black Sun high in a blue sky. The 2044 eclipse will look different. Over Calgary the Sun will stand less than 9 degrees above the horizon. Farther east it sinks even lower. In Dickinson, North Dakota, it will set four minutes after totality ends, with the Moon still covering part of it.

To get a feel for those numbers, hold your fist out at arm’s length. One fist covers about 10 degrees of sky. In Calgary the eclipsed Sun will sit a little less than one fist above a flat horizon. Over in Glasgow, Montana, it will be about a third of a fist up.

Near the horizon, light from the corona travels through many more miles of air than at midday, so it may look dimmer and warmer in color. Photographers get a rare chance to put the black Sun above a real landscape, with a grain elevator, a ranch house or the Rockies in the frame.

A Sun that low is easy to block. In Banff it will be about 10 degrees up. The peaks around town are much higher, so the eclipsed Sun could sit behind a mountain. Calgary and the open prairie are a far safer bet. Wherever you go, you need a clear view to the west-northwest.

Alberta’s big evening

The path crosses almost all of Alberta, from the British Columbia border to Medicine Hat, and both of the province’s large cities are inside it. Calgary gets almost two minutes of totality, starting at 7:38 p.m. Edmonton sits closer to the edge, with about a minute and a half. Grande Prairie, five hours northwest of Edmonton by car, comes close to two full minutes. Neither Calgary nor Edmonton has seen totality in at least a century.

Calgary also has the climate on its side. It is the sunniest major city in Canada, with about 2,400 hours of sunshine a year. On a clear evening, the hills on the west side of the city will give a wide view toward the mountains.

Together the Calgary and Edmonton metro areas are home to about 3.5 million people today. Most of them will not need to travel far. Many will still drive to the edge of town, where houses and trees cannot block a Sun that low.

Montana and North Dakota, right before sunset

Big Sky Country last saw a total eclipse on the winter morning of February 26, 1979. Kids who watched it in Great Falls will be in their seventies by the next one. In 2044 the shadow arrives on a summer evening and covers the northeastern half of the state, from the east side of Glacier National Park to Glasgow and Sidney.

Great Falls itself sits right at the edge, with only about half a minute of totality. Havre, about two hours northeast, gets around a minute and three-quarters, and so does Glasgow. Both are small towns on the Hi-Line, the strip of northern Montana that follows US Route 2 and the railroad. Havre has about 9,400 residents and Glasgow about 3,200, so on eclipse evening the visitors may outnumber the locals.

North Dakota and the corner of South Dakota see the lowest Sun of the whole path. In Williston, totality starts at 8:41 p.m. Central time with the Sun just over one degree up, about the width of a finger at arm’s length. Dickinson keeps Mountain time and goes dark at 7:43 p.m. with the Sun barely clear of the ground.

A thin sliver of the path reaches the far northwest corner of South Dakota. Around the town of Buffalo the eclipsed Sun will sit right on the horizon, so even a row of trees can hide it. Anyone heading that far should find high ground with nothing to the west.

Best spots to see the 2044 sunset eclipse

So close to sunset, the height of the Sun matters as much as the length of totality. A spot with two minutes is no use if a line of trees hides the Sun.

• The prairie east of Calgary Around Strathmore and Drumheller totality lasts almost two minutes, with the Sun about 8 degrees up over flat farmland. The Rockies are far enough away to stay low on the western horizon.
• Grande Prairie and the Peace Country Two full minutes, and the Sun stands about 13 degrees up, higher than anywhere else in Alberta. Trees and buildings are less of a problem.
• Lethbridge to Medicine Hat About a minute and three-quarters over open grassland. The Sun drops to 6 or 7 degrees, so choose a spot with nothing tall to the west.
• Montana’s Hi-Line, from Havre to Glasgow The main option on the US side, with about a minute and three-quarters and the Sun 3 to 5 degrees up over the plains.
• Avoid the mountains and the Dakotas’ low horizon In Banff and Jasper the peaks can hide the Sun. North and South Dakota put it so low that only a hilltop with a clear western view will work.

Forecast: clouds, smoke and a Monday crowd

One last sunset

Americans who miss it will not wait long. On August 12, 2045, a different family brings a total eclipse from California to Florida, with more than six minutes of darkness. Anyone who sees both will get one at sunset on the northern Plains and one at midday in Florida.

The eclipses of 1918 and 1972 belong to the same family as 2044. On August 23, 2044, the last total eclipse of the family crosses the Dakotas just as the Sun goes down, on the local evening of August 22.