I’ve not often driven north in recent years, but a total eclipse seemed more than enough reason.

A friend recently relocated to Guilford after summering there for years, and that became the destination. It’s just down the road from Dover-Foxcroft, shire town of Piscataquis County.

With plenty of local knowledge, we headed west, passing a boat landing already crowded with cars and climbed the highlands to a peak locally known as Cooke Hill, across the Somerset County line in Mayfield Township.

Mayfield is typical of many ultimately unsuccessful 19^th century efforts to develop these portions of Maine’s vast woodlands.

It was organized as a town in 1836, but deorganized in 1887. Another civic effort produced a plantation in 1892 — a form of municipality unique to Maine — and abandoned again in 1937, the pit of the Great Depression.

Much more recently, Cooke Hill became part of the mammoth Bingham wind project — 56 towers stretching through Mayfield and adjacent Kingsbury Plantation, completed in 2016 after two years of permitting delays and lawsuits.

Fortuitously, the hill served two purposes — as an ideal spot to witness the eclipse of the energy source that powers everything on Earth — and as evidence of our halting efforts to stave off consequences from the collective decision to intensively burn fossil fuels nearly two centuries ago.

Standing at its base, the tower is an impressive human construction, far larger than turbines I visited two decades ago in Washington County. Its huge, rhythmic shadows sweeping the ground suddenly vanished as the climactic moment of eclipse began.

Venus shone vividly near the sun, and the corona was a sight one can never forget, every bit as awe-inspiring at earlier witnesses testified.

Then bright sunlight returned, but the sun seemed different than before. Almost like a baseball stadium after the last out’s recorded, the crowd departed, but we lingered.

As the eclipse deepened, red lights on the wind towers all down the ridge came on, pulsing in unison. I thought of ancient civilizations, some believing eclipses foretold the end of the world; the lights seemed ominous.

We have no way on knowing the outcome of the gigantic science experiment we’re conducting on the atmosphere, trapping the sun’s energy.

Bingham, as the largest wind farm built to date in New England, provides nearly 200 megawatts, more than 20% of Maine’s wind generation that’s in turn 14% of electricity production.

A much larger wind project, King Pine in Aroostook County, is feasible but there seems no path toward building the required transmission line. The Legislature’s contribution this year was a bill making it still more difficult to site, responding to protests against the previous route.

In 2022, wind did surpass our century-old hydroelectric system as Maine’s largest source of renewable energy. Solar, despite its sudden visibility, is just ramping up and offshore wind is still a glimmer on the horizon.

It doesn’t seem nearly enough.

On our drive over from Guilford, we had passed well over 1,000 people. They included schoolchildren who got the day off, onlookers at every turnout or wide spot in the road, and — especially — those drawn to water: ponds, rivers and streams early free of ice.

Piscataquis and Somerset are among Maine’s most sparsely populated counties, far from the centers of prosperity. Almost every license plates we saw was from Maine.

These weren’t the eclipse tourists who crowded into Jackman, the Forks, Rangeley, Houlton and other “hot spots.” They were locals who, for one day, united in a common purpose.

On the way north, I avoided the interstate, passing through some favorite Maine towns, including Albion and Unity — emphasis on the latter.

Most of the dates we recall without having to look them up mark wars, disasters, conflicts of all description. For most now alive, they include Dec. 7, Sept. 11 and now, Jan. 6.

Earlier generations focused on Nov. 11, the armistice ending World War I. After the Civil War, we marked April 12, the day batteries fired on Fort Sumter.

Perhaps we’ve found a new date to remember. April 8 could be a new Earth Day, renewing the promise of the one declared April 22, 1970.

That springtime event two generations ago sparked a national citizen’s movement toward land conservation, recycling and eliminating toxic substances that was multi-generational, non-partisan and transformative, producing legislative monuments such as the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.

We need another such moment. Where it will come from, how it will take form is unknown.

Though we failed to unite during the pandemic, we now confront a vaster and greater crisis.

The eclipse reminded us we are not in control. Nonetheless, we must take charge.

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