I can’t believe I haven’t discussed the Northwest Angle yet. It’s perhaps the most famous and renowned national border anomaly in North America. Way back when I started Twelve Mile Circle I featured Michigan’s Lost Peninsula and I’ve long had a fansite devoted to my visit to Point Roberts, Washington. However, the Northwest Angle fell through the cracks until today for some odd reason.
The Northwest Angle is the northernmost point in Minnesota and in the “lower 48” states as well. One would have to travel all the way to Alaska to find another spot in the United States north of the 49th parallel.
It is also an exclave. It belongs to the United States but it’s not physically contiguous with the rest of the country. Visitors can fly to it by float plane or ski plane depending on the season, or they can cruise across Lake of the Woods by boat. However, the only access by land goes through Canada.
The Treaty of Paris
Many decades passed between the time when explorers of European descent first traversed the great interior of the continent until surveyors could map it accurately. Geographers and diplomats made their best guesses based on limited information passed along by adventurers and trappers.
Then the United States and Britain established a boundary at the conclusion of the American Revolution. This was outlined the terms in the Treaty of Paris of 1783 and extended a line to the northwest corner of Lake of the Woods. From there it was supposed to go straight west to the Mississippi River.
… thence through the middle of said Long Lake and the water communication between it and the Lake of the Woods, to the said Lake of the Woods; thence through the said lake to the most northwesternmost point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi; thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the said river Mississippi…
Geographic Error and Correction
But that was impossible! Unbeknownst to experts at the time, the Mississippi River didn’t extend that far north. Of course a subsequent agreement corrected the error and the two parties settled upon the 49th parallel. However that left the little notch on Lake of the Woods standing out on its own.
There are also a couple of other exclaves along Lake of the Woods. Elm Point and Buffalo Point are much smaller than the Northwest Angle. And they arose from the same set of historical facts.
People do live within the exclaves and their neighboring islands. The 2000 United States census recorded 152 inhabitants, with 118 in the exclaves and 34 on the islands.
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