Category: Canada
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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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Cornfield
I wouldn’t quite call it a groundswell. However, more than one hundred different people searched for “cornfield” on Twelve Mile Circle over the last five years. So obviously readers want an article based on cornfields and I shall oblige. Never say that 12MC doesn’t respond to its loyal fans. I interpreted cornfield to mean Corn…
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Hairy Man
I don’t know why I started wondering about Bigfoot this morning. Yes, the actual Bigfoot, as in Sasquatch the large mysterious cryptid hominid of North America’s Pacific Northwest region. I don’t put much faith in the whole Bigfoot phenomenon because I think one would have been discovered by now if it existed, making it all…
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High Level
It began with High Level, in Alberta, Canada. I came across the name and wondered what made it so special. It didn’t seem to be all that high level. In fact it appeared to be downright flat at an elevation of 325 metres (1,066 feet) atop the Canadian Prairies. Well, being that far north I…
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Fighting Words
If someone named a town “Battle” then I would expect that it might commemorate a great conflict taking place nearby. I believed most logical people would find that a reasonable conclusion. So I examined several occurrences and discovered that it wasn’t necessarily the case. Usually the battles referenced were rather inconsequential or not even battles…
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Republic of Indian Stream
The short-lived Republic of Indian Stream owed its existence to frustrations rooted in divergent interpretations of the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War between the United States and Great Britain. The treaty included a number of provisions including those designed to establish firm boundaries between Canada and the United States. Ironically, a…
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Woonerf
In some places they’re called complete streets, home zones or shared spaces. However, I preferred the original Dutch term “woonerf” (pronounced VONE-erf). It described a concept as old as urban civilization itself although applied within a new context. It follows a very simple idea, a notion of streets shared by everyone. That concept took a…
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Skewed Perspective
There was a time in the early days of Twelve Mile Circle when I used to devote entire articles to differences in distances that didn’t seem plausible, although of course the actual measurements didn’t lie. For example, sticking with the Twelve theme, the twelfth article I ever posted on 12MC all the way back in…
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Canadian Landmark
I found a genuine Canadian landmark in the form of Landmark, Manitoba (map). This was a village of about a thousand people in the Rural Municipality of Taché, southeast of Winnipeg. Sure I found other Landmarks in Canada including mountains in British Columbia and Yukon plus a point in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, only one…
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Lockport
The website hit came from Lockport, Illinois. Well, Lockport sounded familiar, although from a different time and place than Illinois. It also seemed quite descriptive, a lock on a canal combined with a port (or perhaps a portage). Locks would be ideal places for settlements during the heyday of canal travel a century or more…