Pe vremea când măsurătorile topografice nu erau decât simple aproximații, granița dintre Americii și Canada a fost trasată greșit și greșită a rămas de atunci până astăzi. Un colț de teritoriu al statului Minesota se află înconjurat de teritorii ale Canadei. Ca să ajungi la el trebuie să treci o graniță mai mult simbolică. Cei ce o fac trebuise să sune din proprie inițiativă la un telefon public și să se declare …

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The Northwest Angle, known simply as the Angle by locals, and coextensive with Angle Township, is a part of northern Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota, and is one of only two places in the United States outside of Alaska that is north of the 49th parallel; the other is a small portion of northern Washington State that crosses over the 49th parallel due to a 19th-century surveying error.^[1] That parallel is the northern boundary of the 48 contiguous states extending from the west coast along the northern boundaries of Washington, Idaho,Montana, North Dakota, and part of Minnesota to the Northwest Angle. The Angle is one of only four non-island locations in the 48 contiguous states not directly connected to them by land within the country, the others being nearby Elm Point, Minnesota; Point Roberts, Washington; and the town of Alburgh, Vermont. All four are located on the Canadian border with the United States.

Farther east, U.S. territory does not extend as far north as the 49th parallel. Map projections sometimes create a superficial appearance that Maine extends farther north than that; that appearance does not occur in maps in which parallels of latitude are straight lines.

A portion (70%)^[2] of the Angle is held in trust by the Red Lake Indian Reservation (Ojibwa).

Although the Angle is listed as one of several distinct regions of Minnesota, its total population was only 152 at the 2000 census.

Origin

The Treaty of Paris, concluded between the United States and Great Britain at the end of the American Revolutionary War, stated that the boundary between U.S. territory and the British possessions to the north would run “…through the Lake of the Woods to the northwestern most point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi…”

The parties did not suspect that the source of the Mississippi, Lake Itasca (then unknown to European explorers), was south of that point, and that thus the entire Mississippi was too far south to be intersected by a line running west from the Lake of the Woods. A factor in this mistake was the use of the Mitchell Map during the treaty negotiations; that map showed the Mississippi extending far to the north. In the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, the error was corrected by having the boundary run directly from the northwest point of the lake to the 49th parallel and then westward along it.

When a survey team led by David Thompson finally located the northwesternmost point of the lake and surveyed this north-south line, it was found to intersect other bays of the lake and therefore form the boundary of a section of U.S. territory to its east, now known as the Northwest Angle.

Access

The Angle is accessible from the rest of Minnesota by one of two ways:

• One can reach the angle without crossing the international border by crossing the Lake of the Woods. This can be done by aircraft, by boat when the lake is free of ice, or by ice road in the winter months. Since there are no automobile ferries currently operating on the lake, vehicles coming from the rest of Minnesota can only reach the Angle without crossing the border in winter. While the ice is forming in late autumn and breaking up in the spring the lake’s surface cannot be safely crossed – at these times domestic access to the Angle is possible only by air.

• To reach the Angle over land, one would take Minnesota State Highway 313N (Warroad, Minnesota to Sprague, Manitoba) across the border into Manitoba, Canada, connecting to Provincial Road 12 in Manitoba at the border, then to Provincial Road 308 Manitoba, to Provincial Road 525, then finally crossing back into the United States in the Northwest Angle south of rural developed Angle Inlet, Minnesota (Angle Inlet Township). The distance from Warroad or Roseau to the Angle proper it is approximately 63 miles through Minnesota and Manitoba back to the Angle’s U.S. border. It is approximately 10 miles from the actual border (intersection of Manitoba #525 and NWA Road Dawson) to the rural developments of the Northwest Angle.

The border crossing (image) is unstaffed. Travelers using the single gravel road in and out the Angle are expected to use a telephone at Jim’s Corner, Youngs Bay Marina or Carlsons Landing to contact Canadian or U.S. Customs and make their declarations.

(preluare de aici)

Categories: Articole de interes general