>> That certainly shows my ignorance although anything North of Jacksonville is the "frozen North"! cya >> Just to enlighten you further, part of Minnesota is *above* the 49th parallel. It's called the Northwest Angle, and the dry land part is cut off from the rest of the USA by water, so the residents have to drive through Canada to get to the main part of Minnesota. It's the result of geographic ignorance. At the time of the Treaty of Paris, the border between the US and Canada was defined as along the customary fur trade route to the northwest corner of Lake of the Woods, and thence west to the Mississippi River, which was the original western border of the US. What they didn't know in 1783 was that the Mississippi didn't originate that far north. The 49th parallel was established as the border west from the Northwest Angle only after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and some later disputes about the border farther west in the Oregon Territory. As a sidebar to this sidebar, in the first half of the 19th century, the British tried to claim the St. Louis River as the customary fur trade route, which would have put Duluth and the present Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Ontario. The US negotiators made a counterclaim on the Kaministikwia River route, which would have put Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the US border, and made Quetico Provincial Park part of Minnesota. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which settled the present boundary between the US and Canada, compromised on the Pigeon River route, which was the one intended in 1783 anyway. An interesting provision of that treaty that is relevant to canoeists in the Boundary Waters and Quetico today (to get back to the topic of paddling) gives travelers along the border the right to use the customary portages along the route regardless of which side of the border they happen to be on. Chuck Holst *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
>The 49th parallel was established as the border west from the >Northwest Angle only after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and some later >disputes about the border farther west in the Oregon Territory. >Chuck Holst Gosh Chuck, You glazed over the whole exciting "Pig War". This was big stuff -- more relevant to U.S. history and Canadian history than, say, World War I. And the only unfortunate victims of the war were some farm animals who without a doubt would not have survived long anyhow. Mishandled, this incident might have resulted in a Canada with no West Coast or an ugly third war between Britain and the USA. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
My eyes were glazed after I wrote the previous post -- and maybe during. Chuck Holst -----Original Message----- From: Jerry Hawkins [mailto:jhawkins_at_cisco.com] Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 3:32 PM To: Chuck Holst; 'paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net' Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] US-Canada Border >The 49th parallel was established as the border west from the >Northwest Angle only after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and some later >disputes about the border farther west in the Oregon Territory. >Chuck Holst Gosh Chuck, You glazed over the whole exciting "Pig War". This was big stuff -- more relevant to U.S. history and Canadian history than, say, World War I. And the only unfortunate victims of the war were some farm animals who without a doubt would not have survived long anyhow. Mishandled, this incident might have resulted in a Canada with no West Coast or an ugly third war between Britain and the USA. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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