Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A new petition calls on Congress to give the Northwest Angle of Minnesota back to Canada.
The initiative was submitted to the White House’s petitions page on Sunday, but the issue has been debated over for decades.
It all started back in 1783 during the Treaty of Paris.
The border being drawn between the U.S. and what was then Britain was supposed to cut through Lake of the Woods at a northwest angle — hence the name. The problem was, the map the Founding Fathers used of Lake of the Woods was completely wrong. They were way off, but that weird boundary bump stuck.
And ever since, “The Angle” (as locals like to call it) has remained an outlier. The only overland route to this part of Minnesota is actually through Canada on a gravel road.
In 1998, Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson proposed legislation that would give residents of the Angle the power to decide whether they wanted to leave the U.S or not.
Now, the issue is being rehashed again.
The petition states that “due to a surveying errors, it is the only place in the United States outside Alaska that is north of the 49th parallel, which forms the border between the U.S. and Canada.”
It asks that Congress, “make america great by correcting this critical survey error.”
In order for a petition to receive a response from the White House it has to get at least 100,000 signatures in 30 days.
So far, more than 200 people have signed it.
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