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From: scottb@iddic.UUCP (scott bigger)
Newsgroups: net.wobegon
Subject: Re: Minnesota Imperialists?
Message-ID: <2101@iddic.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 13:12:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: iddic.2101
Posted: Thu Aug  1 13:12:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Aug-85 10:30:29 EDT
References: <10771@rochester.UUCP>
Reply-To: scottb@iddic.UUCP (Scott Bigger)
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 45
Summary: Surveyor gets lost and gives the US the Northwest Angle.

I'm not sure why this is in this newsgroup but here goes...

In days of old and nights were cold, someone in the government decided
boundaries were good things, keeps the country from leaking, give's reason
for border patrol, immigration agents, show's folks what line to cross to
become a draft dodger or a wet back, makes folks feel worldly when their
walleye rig hits the opposing shore of the Rainy River.  Surveyor's were
hired, presumably after talking it all over with the Canadians, the
Russians, and the British and who all else might have laid claim to land
back then.  He was told to start above Washington (or whatever it was called
then) at the appropriate parallel with his map and compass and set forth
to create (drum roll) a boundary. (Fan fair, kiss him good-by, mom.)
And he did.

All went well, a mountain here, a river there, the great plains with a lot
of nothing but the promise of soddies, dugouts, and hockey players.  Once
in a while the Souix might have made him nervous but the old boundary
was straight and true for about 1700 miles and then suddenly there's this
big lake.  In the woods.  And it was getting dark.  And threatening rain.
Well, any way, the legend says he set out across this lake with what ever
surveyors take with them to cross a lake not to mention a country and 
promptly got himself lost on the lake in the dark in the rain.  He could 
either keep going across this lake that showed no promise of having a shore
closer than Europe, or he could head due north to where he could see the
light of some farmer's fire or oil lamp or some such.  In the morning
with directions he squared off this mistake, headed east, and found
himself in charted territory again and called it quits.

We got the Nortwest Angle, the folks up north didn't think it was worth
the bother and our farmer with the fire became an American, all at the
stroke of a pen.

This is an obvious embelishment of something we learned in our wonderful
Minnesota history class in Junior high in the little town of Crookston, Mn,
about 10 years ago now I guess.  It's a little long winded and jazzed up
just cause I don't feel like doing real work yet this morning, but it's
close enough to what we were lead to believe was the truth that you can
probably believe it, too.  If you really need to know the details, I'm sure
somewhere in Washington, D.C. there are records you could dig out if you
knew where to look.  It's a lot more fun to tell this story though.

Now all I gotta do is figure out when and where to catch PHC in Portland.

Scott Bigger
tektronix!iddic!scottb