I’m not sure the title adequately conveyed what I’m trying to describe, although I can’t think of a better concise title to replace it either. Conceptually, I wanted to know the northernmost and southernmost places in the world and in the United States where one could cross an international border by automobile via a road connected to the larger grid. There are plenty of places farther north where a crossing could be accomplished on foot, perhaps after a long ship voyage or an airline flight, but not by a motorized vehicle on an established road. Those road crossings would be cardinal direction border extremes for the average tourist as opposed to the adventurous explorer. You know, ones that I might actually experience someday.
These were the best examples I could find. I’d love see improvements.
NORTHERNMOST
View Larger Map
The absolutely farthest northern road that crossed an international border that I found occurred between Polmak, Norway and Nuorgam, Finland at an astounding 70 degrees north of the equator. By contrast the Arctic Circle is at about 66.56 degrees north. Barrow, Alaska — about as far north as one can get in the United States — is only slightly farther north (71 degrees) and it’s not connected to anything by road, much less internationally. This is crazy far north.
Both nations are part of the Schengen Area so one could cross the border freely. It looked like a former border station had been converted into shops in the Street View image.
NORTHERNMOST UNITED STATES (AND CANADA)
Flickr by jimmywayne via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) License
The United States and Canada share the same northernmost international border crossing at Poker Creek, Alaska / Little Gold Creek, Yukon (map) along the Top of the World Highway. It’s located at about 64 degrees north.
This also demonstrated how few roads crossed this rugged, isolated terrain because the border extended another 380 miles (612 kilometres) due north without a single other road crossing it. This border station closes in the winter so I’m willing to concede that purists may wish to look farther south to the Alaska-Canadian Highway for a more complete example, one that remains open 24X7 all year long (map).
What about the Lower 48 states? I think the northernmost crossing would be the place where the border jogs around to form the Northwest Angle (map). Weekend Roady visited this one in person and I won’t try to improve upon his first-hand description.
SOUTHERNMOST
View Larger Map
The record wasn’t clear-cut at the southern end, nor was it quite as extreme. I think it may be a spot on Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego around 54 degrees south, although it’s not even as far south as Ushuaia (featured on 12MC previously), the southernmost town of significance in Argentina. There may also be an error on the Google Map too. Google seems to have issues with borderlines, a condition I’ve observed before. Notice the vertical fence line about 100 metres west of Google’s line. Could that be the true boundary?
View Larger Map
I thought perhaps there might be a car ferry between Ushuaia, Argentina and Puerto Williams, Chile. It seemed natural and I’d be willing to bend the "road" rule to accommodate a ferry. It wouldn’t violate the spirit, right? Nonetheless, Wikipedia said of Puerto Williams, "There is no regular link with Argentina and connection to Ushuaia is restricted." Puerto Williams exists primarily for the Chilean navy to assert national sovereignty at the farthest tip of South America. It was once a rather sensitive military area although tourism has begun to creep in.
Another source said it was possible to travel between the two places albeit not very conveniently, "Ushuaia Boating in Ushuaia, Argentina, has regular zodiac service to Isla Navarino October-March or April. The trajectory is boat from Ushuaia to Puerto Navarino (40 minutes, immigration), then minibus to Puerto Williams." However that wouldn’t qualify as an automobile crossing by any stretch of the imagination so I’m not going to count it.
SOUTHERNMOST SOUTHMOST USA
Eyeball estimates led me to believe that the southernmost border crossing in the United States would be found at Brownsville, Texas where it provided access to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, México. That was located at about 25.9 degrees north. A whole bunch of the world can be found farther south than that.
View Larger Map
That’s not what I enjoyed the most, though. I was amused by Southmost Boulevard. That’s southmost not southernmost. A shorter word with the same meaning. It sounded a little odd. Maybe I could get used to it?
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. The subject matter differed — I focused on oddly bifurcated business in that instance — although Meh’s Canadian & Chinese Cuisine in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia would certainly qualify as an example of a Chinese restaurant in a rural area. I wrote at the time, "I’m continuously amazed to find Chinese restaurants in even the smallest, most remote and undoubtedly obscure towns that I’ve ever visited." That odd fixation of mine hasn’t dissipated over time.
It came back to life when I was in Guymon, Oklahoma recently.
View Larger Map
I noticed a Chinese buffet practically across the street from our hotel. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been too surprised by the Guymon occurrence. It’s the "big city" of the Oklahoma panhandle with nearly 12 thousand residents. About 2.7% of the population (~300 people) self-identified as Asian in the most recent census albeit many of them Burmese not Chinese. Guymon probably fit within the definition of confirmation bias now that I’ve had an opportunity to consider the math. To my credit though, we’d been driving through empty terrain for several hours and the juxtaposition flashed on my conscious brighter than a neon sign.
It’s hard for me to conceive of the cultural isolation that these proprietors must endure in the most extreme examples. I came across one article that highlighted the story of a family of Chinese immigrants with US-born children that settled in Lexington, Nebraska. The ability to own one’s own business and earn a decent living in small town America provided an enticing option to urban problems, so maybe the American Dream makes up for the difference. They seemed to be assimilating just fine.
There are several dimensions one could use to determine the most remote Chinese restaurant in North America. I’m not sure I’ll ever answer the question to my complete satisfaction although I offer a few tantalizing possibilities. Obviously I’ve never been to any of these places and I have no idea if the limited online reviews I could find are even remotely true. I’m also sure theses places represent the most bastardized version of westernized Chinese cuisine imaginable to match the tastes of their clientele, and I’m a sucker for that. I enjoy authentic cuisine too. I try to appreciate the dichotomy separately for what it is, and recognize that they should never be compared.
Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant, Glasgow, Montana
View Larger Map
Glasgow has about 3,200 residents with 0.3% of the population (about 10 people) self-identified as Asian. That’s not to say that every one of those residents identify as Chinese of course, a distinction I’ll note similarly for the remainder of the article, although it does provide an indication of the potential population pool.
The Google Street View image led me to wonder if the Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant was still open. Reviews in Yelp dated as recently as 2011 however and Street View dated to 2008. Maybe it simply needed a good coat of paint.
One person said, "This is the most awful restaurant I’ve been to." Another said, it was "One of the best meal[s] I had in Montana." Turning to Urban Spoon, a reviewer noted, "Average is ok in this case — I didn’t get sick after eating here either. This is my first criteria when writing a review for any Eastern Montana restaurant." I learned a couple of things. First, Chinese food in Glasgow, MT is either excellent, terrible or average. Second, the standard of excellence might not be very high in Eastern Montana. I wonder if Weekend Roady would agree?
Golden China Restaurant, Nome, Alaska
View Larger Map
Nome has 3,700 residents with 1.54% of the population (about 55 people) self-identified as Asian. That’s both a larger town and a higher percentage than the previous example. I’m including it on my short list anyway because anything in Nome has to be considered remote by definition.
Golden China Restaurant has some photos on Yelp and a small number reviews on Google+. One said, "The waitress never smiles, she looks mean." There was also a review in Korean which Google translated with the usual mangled results: "Korean pineapple chicken boss recommended. Tang manipulative called look. My Mongolian beef was too salty and sweet taste. Atmosphere clean and good music."
In Nome, be sure to look for the surly waitress and stick with the Korean pineapple chicken boss.
Viking Chinese Restaurant, Viking, Alberta
View Larger Map
Viking has about 1,000 residents. However it’s in Canada and I don’t know enough about the Canadian census to determine demographics. I highlighted this location primarily because I was amused by the possibility of Viking-Chinese fusion cuisine. It’s too bad Viking is the town’s name and not an indicator of culinary style.
I couldn’t find any online reviews. However, strangely enough, two people checked in with foursquare from Viking Chinese. You can do the same if you need to kill some time in Edmonton and want to take a 137 kilometre road trip.
Ying Bin Restaurant, Kenmare, ND
View Larger Map
Is Ying Bin Restaurant the champion of remoteness? Kenmare has 1,000 residents with 0.7% of the population (about 7 people) self-identified as Asian. That’s a tad better (meaning fewer) than Glasgow, MT. Conceivably, just about every person in Kenmare of Chinese heritage could be associated with the Ying Bin Restaurant. I found only one brief review: "Food is superb, when made fresh."
Those are my candidates for the most remote Chinese restaurants in North America. Can the 12MC audience do better? — double bonus points if you’ve actually eaten there. Triple points if you’re the restaurateur.
This isn’t intended as a biography of Captain James Cook although his voyages throughout the South Pacific and beyond were numerous and legendary. Rather this is about places named for Captain Cook, strewn about the waters he sailed and the shorelines he charted. He has an entire society named for him if other aspects of his remarkable life interest you.
View Larger Map
Certainly I’d read about Captain Cook in history books as I went through school, however I can’t say I’d really though much about him since then. That’s not intended to dismiss his contributions as much as to note that I’d simply focused on other topics. This began to change during my most recent trip to Alaska a couple of years ago. The preponderance of Alaskan residents and visitors alike can find a near-daily reminder of Cook’s legacy if they are attentive: Cook Inlet is the big arm of water connecting Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska and the open sea. Indeed, "Anchorage" connotes a ship-friendly place where one could load and unload via Cook Inlet.
Captain Cook didn’t discover Cook Inlet. The Dena’ina (Tanaina), an Athabascan people, already lived there for millennia. He wasn’t even the first European to arrive. Russian fur traders beat him to the Alaskan coastline as well. Nonetheless Cook sailed into this specific body of water during his 1778 expedition while searching for the legendary Northwest Passage. Subsequent explorers named the inlet for Cook and the name stuck. Life works that way sometimes.
That never would have registered on my mind either except that we visited Captain Cook State Recreation Area on the inlet’s southern edge along the Kenai Peninsula. It finally resonated once I was slapped silly about the head with the name. Only then did it finally connect with my conscious. I don’t profess to be the brightest or most observant geo-geek.
View Larger Map
I thought it was interesting but I didn’t do much with the notion until a few days ago. That’s when I noticed a 12MC visitor landing on the website from Captain Cook, Hawaii. Fascinating. I’d never heard of it before. It turns out to be a census-designated place (not formally a town) on the western side of the island of Hawaii, the Big Island. It is located along Kealakekua Bay. Captain Cook stopped here in 1779, upset the natives, and died after being clubbed about the head and stabbed. Thus ended the career of Captain James Cook.
It’s fitting, I suppose, that a town would bear Captain Cook’s name here and that a monument would be erected in his honor nearby in Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park. Except the town isn’t named for him!
Let me explain. Yes, he was definitely the Captain Cook in question. There wasn’t some other Captain Cook traipsing around Hawaii in the Eighteenth Century sewing geographic confusion. The settlement was named in the early 1900′s for a post office at the Captain Cook Coffee Company. Therefore, technically the town was named for the coffee that was named for the Captain. It would be like someone naming a town Cap’n Crunch because it happened to be co-located with the Quaker Oats Company. Well, maybe it’s not quite that bad but you get the point.
By the way, the Captain Cook Coffee Co. still exists: "Captain Cook is one of the oldest existing coffee companies in Hawaii. Since the 1880’s, Captain Cook has been growing and processing raw green Kona coffee." I wasn’t expecting that at all. I would have thought they’d be long gone.
View Larger Map
There are other places named for the Captain. One is a point of land ("Captain Cook Point") in Lane County, Oregon.
Captain Cook Point isn’t marked as such by Google Maps. However the coordinates are listed in the USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) so it’s legitimate. I do see "Cooks Chasm" on Google Maps which lends it an additional air of credibility. Captain Cook spotted nearby Cape Perpetua in 1778 so he definitely sailed past this stretch of Oregon coastline.
The coincidences continue. I could have visited Captain Cook Point if I’d only explored the weird checkerboard during my recent Oregon adventure. That’s another geo-oddity I can add to my long list of lost opportunities.
The previous-mentioned Captain Cook place names are all found within the United States. There are plenty of others located outside of the US, in and around and throughout the South Pacific:
- The Cook Islands (map) is the most obvious example: a self-governing nation in free association with New Zealand.
- Cook Strait (map): the narrow body of water separating New Zealand’s North and South Islands.
- Cooktown, Queensland, Australia (map): near where Cook beached his ship in 1770 for repairs.
- James Cook University (map): a public university in Townsville, Queensland, Australia
- Cook Crater (map): on the moon, yes the moon!
I’ve enjoyed my little sailing adventure with Captain Cook this morning. This list of course is by no means all-inclusive; I have only so much time to write. Please feel free to list others if I’ve neglected your personal favorite(s).
