September 16, 2016

From the Great Lakes west to the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. boundary with Canada lies on the 49th parallel – except here in northern Minnesota, where it's about 20 miles north of that line.  That's because when the boundary treaties were being established back in the late 1700s and early 1800s, this area hadn't been surveyed yet and wasn't well known.  Consequently, this small pocket of land, called the Northwest Angle, ended up being deeded to the U.S. although it was surrounded by Canada.  The Northwest Angle, one of the most interesting geographic anomalies in America, includes the northernmost point of the contiguous United States.

I drove into the Northwest Angle on a drizzly afternoon and camped that evening at Jake's Resort.  The next morning, the owner of the resort, a nice fellow named Paul, was kind enough to take me out in his boat to visit the northernmost point of the contiguous United States.  

We pulled up to the buoy that marks the northernmost point of the U.S. and as I stood on the bow of Paul's boat, I thought about shouting, "I'm the king of the world!" or maybe "I'm the northernmost person in the contiguous United States!"  Instead, I shot this panorama.

 

 

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