Category: Terrain
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Greatest Time Zone Jump
People seem more interested in time zone anomalies than many other quirks I discuss. I know this because I get lots of random one-time visitors to the Twelve Mile Circle via search engines. Invariably they are searching these kinds of queries. I like them too, but I try not to overwhelm my regular readership with…
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The Wisconsin Highpoint
Highpointing makes me feel conflicted. I love highpoints conceptually and I have nothing but the greatest admiration for those who collect them. I’ve featured some of these people in the past and of course I’m not beyond partaking myself whether at the state or county level. Highpoints, quite simply, represent perfect fodder for discussion on…
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Island Isolation doesn’t Require an Island
Juneau is located in Alaska’s southeastern panhandle and serves as the state capital. No roads connect Juneau to the outside world even though it’s clearly part of mainland North America. Access is by sea or by air only. Rather than describe the situation it’s easier to show it. Notice how Juneau hugs a narrow seaside…
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Walk Across the Mississippi River
Can any mortal human walk across the Mississippi River? Yes. It’s easy to cross the Mississippi at its source. The Mississippi River begins its long journey in northern Minnesota at Lake Itasca. Here the Mississippi starts as a small stream. Just about anyone can stroll right across it using conveniently placed stepping-stones. This humble beginning…
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Inconvenient Rivers
Those pesky rivers! People go to great trouble to designate a river as a boundary, decide who has ownership or how it will be split, draw all those maps, and then the river has the audacity to jump its bank and form a new channel. Does this mean the boundary automatically changes too? Of course…
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Island on an Island
Sometimes an island has a pond or lake that also happens to contain an island. Twelve Mile Circle likes to call that second, subsidiary island an “island-on-an-island.” Beaver Island, Michigan Beaver Island is the largest on Lake Michigan. It contains several lowlands, marshy areas, and ponds which makes it a perfect candidate for islands-on-an-island. We…
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Hydrological Apex of North America
Twelve Mile Circle has discussed watersheds and continental divides before. We’ve crossed the Great Divide in Colorado together. We’ve visited the Red River of the North in Fargo, North Dakota that drains to the Arctic Ocean. And we’ve even mentioned a small corner of Canada that drains into the Gulf of Mexico. So divides are…
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Lowest Elevation in Nepal
This is Mount Everest (map), a topic way to obvious for the Twelve Mile Circle to consider. What could I add? Everyone knows about it, every map of the area shows it, and resources galore focus on its magnificence. Its national attitudinal opposite, however — the lowest elevation in Nepal — is a different story…
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Geography as Pitcher Plant
A pitcher plant feeds carnivorously on unsuspecting insects. Bugs crawl, fly or fall into the plant. They cannot escape. Soon victims drown and slowly dissolve into a soup absorbed by the plant for nutrition. The Situation I read a great article in the Washington Post over the weekend that is still available online: “Drunk Drivers…
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To Hel and Back
Poland’s Hel Peninsula is an odd strip of sand jutting 35 kilometres into the Baltic Sea (map). It cradles the Bay of Puck along its inward side. At its widest point near the tip it reaches perhaps 3 kilometres. However, it slims down to a diminutive 300 metres or less across much of its length.…