Tag: North Dakota
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Reader Mailbag 2
Every once in awhile I receive an overwhelming number of excellent finds from the Twelve Mile Circle community. Last time I called the collection “Reader Mailbag.” I simply tacked the number 2 onto that older title in a nod to my lack of creativity for the current installment. To be considered for the Reader Mailbag…
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Good Fortuna
Fortuna was the Roman goddess of prosperity and luck. That would be an excellent name for any location hoping for some of that mojo rub off. I was aware of a Fortuna in California (map), probably the largest Fortuna in the United States. People there lived in the heart of redwood country. I’m sure it’s…
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County Divided
Look to the far northwestern corner of North Dakota, right up next to Canada and Montana. There sits a county with a curious name, Divide (map). It appeared somewhat rectangular like many other counties on the sparsely-populated Great Plains. Few natural features could take the place of arbitrary straight lines in this emptiness. I’d encountered…
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Did Sir Walter Raleigh Get Drunk in Canada?
I learned a new adage recently, Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: “Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no“. I’d already understood that mentally of course I just didn’t realize it had a name. Good to know. Naturally, Sir Walter Raleigh never indulged in intoxicants in Canada. The record…
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Largest Artificial Lakes
I had some fun with artificially created geographic features lately. First I featured the largest artificial islands and then islands joined artificially to the mainland. Now, I thought, I’d flip the concept to the opposite extreme. Instead of land on water, how about water on land? What might be the largest area of terrain intentionally…
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Most Remote Chinese Restaurants in North America
I wonder if I’ve observed a genuine phenomenon or if I’m falling into a confirmation bias trap. Everywhere I travel, and I meander through extremely rural areas as a matter of preference, I notice Chinese restaurants. This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned this peculiarity. I posted Not Fusion, CONfusion a couple of years ago.…
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100th Meridian Counties
The Intertubes wants to know and I’m happy to oblige. This is one of those occasional articles that regular 12MC readers may want to skip because it doesn’t involve much from an intellectual standpoint. For some reason I keep getting search engine queries about the 100th meridian west of Greenwich, specifically the list of United…
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Making the Switch
I learn the most amazing things as I delve into topics. For instance, thanks to Kansas Mountain Time, I now know how to change an area from one time zone to another should the need ever arise. The simplicity actually surprised me. It seemed much easier and less bureaucratic than I would ever imagine. Let’s…
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Highest Religious Affiliation
I’ve been spending a little time on the Religion Census 2010 website. It includes a wealth of maps and numerical tables which I’m sure to draw upon for future articles. But a few data extremes came to the forefront of my mind immediately as I leafed through some of the reports. First, don’t confuse this…
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King of Portmanteau
If Portmanteau was a nation, Albert J. Earling would have been its king. By now most readers understand Twelve Mile Circle’s fascination with portmanteaus. It’s the birth of creative new words resulting from the smashing together two or more existing words. Previous articles dealing with this device included Mardela to Delmar and Dueling Portmanteau Placenames.…