Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • New Sweden

    The New Sweden colony first made an appearance in Twelve Mile Circle a few weeks ago. Back then I spoke of an ancient trust, on Burlington Island in the Delaware River. Swedes don’t get much attention for their colonial history in North America. The narrative generally focuses upon English, Spanish and French interests. Sometimes Dutch…

  • Prime Meridian Through Spain

    I noticed a query dropped upon the Twelve Mile Circle from one of the search engines. It was a fairly straight-forward request for information, as far as those things go. My anonymous visitor wanted to know about the “Madrid prime meridian line” Do we sense a problem? Where Does the Prime Meridian Go? The knee-jerk…

  • Abandoned Canals in Canada

    Generally I know exactly how I come up with each topic I hand-pick for Twelve Mile Circle articles. That’s not the case here. I don’t recall the exact sequence of steps that led to abandoned canals in Canada. Well, I understand the Canadian part. I figured it would be a smaller universe. Also it’s been…

  • Slices of Belgium

    Immigration and the fingerprints it leaves behind sometimes finds its way to Twelve Mile Circle as a topic of conversation. The legacy remains even after a successful assimilation and disbursement of the original population. I’m curious particularly about the smallest populations of settlers in new lands — and it might be difficult to get more…

  • Odds and Ends 5

    It’s been a long time since I’ve posted an “Odds and Ends” compilation. That’s where I combine lots of minor yet noteworthy topics that don’t provide enough material to stand on their own into one completely disjointed article. Frankly a lot of these miscellaneous topics have been going onto my social media sites lately so…

  • History, Geography and Fitness

    Who could ever grow tired of this view? I haven’t although I do like a little scenic variation now-and-then. I have a pleasant 20-mile bicycle route I like to take that hugs the Potomac riverside, including this segment I described previously in Monumental Ride. From there I curve onto the former Washington & Old Dominion…

  • Captains Less Prestigious

    I had no trouble finding populated places named for Captain James Cook, the legendary 18th Century explorer and navigator, along the edges of the waters he sailed. However, plenty of other captains sailed the oceans during that same period. Naturally I wondered if the maps memorialized others similarly. Could I find other places named “Captain…

  • How Invasive

    I had a conversation recently with my friend the birder. He pointed out various bird species that happened to fly within line-of-site of our gathering, while noting which ones were native species and which ones were transplants. That led to discussions of various invasive animals introduced into North America either by accident or by design,…

  • Zig Zag

    What was that 1980’s song, “One Thing Leads to Another?” Right. You know the one. Put that on in the background and use that as our Twelve Mile Circle theme song for the day. I mentioned my frantic search to resolve a Move the Road dilemma that the loyal 12MC audience resolved soon thereafter. I…

  • Strange Bedfellows

    This isn’t a guessing game specifically. However, I’ll start out that way to get some competitive juices flowing through the Twelve Mile Circle audience. I know everyone likes it when I post trivia questions. What do the following nations have in common?: Afghanistan; Botswana; Burma; France; Somalia and Ukraine. Think about that for a moment.…

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  2. what is the total population that lives now in the land given back to Virginia should it be part of…

  5. Park ranger at Chalmette (New Orleans) Battlefield let me pull up the Union Jack 20 years ago. My dad would…