While 2024 will forever be remembered as the year of the first total eclipse to pass over Canada since 1979, it will also be remembered for the devastating wildfires in Western Canada and intense rain storms in both Toronto and Montreal, and the on-going Canada Post strike.
Here in Ottawa, 2024 will also be remembered as the year the LRT expansion moved one step closer to becoming a reality.
Thankfully, 2024 was also an Olympic year with the Summer Olympics in Paris providing the perfect mid-summer distrac-tion from reality. Unfortunately, Canada was also responsible for th biggest scandal of the Olympics when the Canadian female soccer team got caught using a drone to spy on the team from New Zealand resulting in three coaches being banned from the sport for three years and sent home, including head coach Bev Priestman.
Mercifully, the scandal was overshadow-ed by the performance of Canada’s athletes who won nine gold, seven silver and 11 bronze medals, with the highlight being the gold medal won by Canada’s 4x100 men’s relay team.
The Summer Olympics also provided the stage for 16-year-old swimmer Summer McIntosh to become Canada’s latest sport-ing sweetheart when she won four individual medals, including three gold.
The only thing that could have surpassed Canada’s performance at the Olympics in the hearts of Canadians would have been a Stanley Cup win by the Edmonton Oilers who came back from a 3-0 deficit in the final series against the Florida Panthers to force a Game 7, only to come out on the losing end of 2-1 score, breaking the hearts of millions of Canadian hockey fans in the process.
But the biggest event by far of 2024, by far, was the total solar eclipse which took place on April 8. Totality could be seen along a wide swath of Ontario which ran from Niagara Falls across Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River into Quebec, which had people flocking to every small town along the St. Lawrence Seaway from Kingston to Cornwall. In Ottawa, there was 95 per cent totality.
Closer to home, 2024 was marked by a two-week LCBO strike in the middle of July and the news that there are hundreds of unexploded bombs buried in the Mer Bleue bog that are left over from the Second World War when it was used a practice bombing range.
The biggest story in Orléans in the past year was the news of Orléan.
ANNUAL REMEMBRANCE DAY CEREMONY 11 a.m. at the Orléans Cenotaph beside the Orléans Legion Branch 632, 800 Taylor Creek Drive. Sandwiches and desserts following the ceremony inside the Legion.
OYSTER NIGHT every Wednesday from 6-9 pm at the Orléans Brewing Co. Two types of oysters served with lemon, Tobasco, horseradish, salt and mignonette. The Orléans Brewing Co. is located at 4380 Innes Rd., next to McDonalds.
SDBC TAPROOM CONCERT SERIES presents East Coast Experience live and in concert from 7 p.m. at the Stray Dog Brewing Company, 501 Lacolle Way in the Taylor Creek Business Park. Advance tickets $25 available at 
CRAFT AND BAKE SALE from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.at the Hobbs Seniors Club, 109 Larch Cres. (off Champlain Street).
