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October 1

land boundary between Ontario and Minnesota

The west end of the boundary between Minnesota and Ontario is the Rainy River flowing westward into Lake of the Woods. The east end of the boundary is the Pigeon River flowing eastward into Lake Superior. Somewhere between, then, the boundary must cross land. How much land? Is it in more than one piece? —Tamfang (talk) 01:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As near as I can figure, the boundary between watersheds occurs just NW of Mountain Lake (note that Mountain Lake, Minnesota is about another lake with the same name in the same state) between it and Watap Lake. The land boundary seems to be quite small, under 2000 feet: [1]. Note, however, that small rivers make terrible boundaries, as rivers move over time. In several places, the river has moved, and the international boundary follows the old river course, which is now dry land. So, there would be far more land boundary area in all of those places, such as here: [2]. (We also have this interesting spot where the old meandering river is now apparently contained entirely within a much larger lake, making it look like whoever drew the border must have been on LSD: [3]). SinisterLefty (talk) 04:52, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at that last area in Google Maps Satellite view, you'll see that the "much larger lake" apparently does not exist continuously. In the satellite photos it looks like a recently drained flood plain around the meandering river. (This was a surprise to me: my original guess was that the river had been dammed to enlarge the lake.) --76.69.116.4 (talk) 08:23, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It might have been dammed by beavers, assuming that a beaver dam wouldn't show up on satellite pics. SinisterLefty (talk) 17:19, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Update: It looks like the Laurentian Divide, which is the southern border of the Hudson Bay Watershed, crosses the Minnesota/Ontario border in more than one place. Another is at the Height of Land Portage: [4]. See Height of Land Portage#Geography for a description of the length of this portage, the Watap Portage listed previously, and a third, the Swamp Portage/Monument Portage. It doesn't look like any part of the border drains into the Mississippi watershed. SinisterLefty (talk) 05:43, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's correct, if you mean the Ontario border. The only part of the Mississippi watershed that's in Canada is quite a bit farther west. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 08:23, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an interesting map of the Nelson River drainage basin, a portion of the Hudson Bay watershed, which shows how the rivers on the border flow W and then N and then NE to get to Hudson Bay: [5]. This map doesn't show the level of detail to see all 3 portage areas, however. SinisterLefty (talk) 06:50, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The border was originally defined by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, but this was negotiated using a poor map. The treaty specified that from Lake Superior the border would run "through Lake Superior Northward of the Isles Royal & Phelipeaux to the Long Lake; Thence through the Middle of said Long-Lake, and the Water Communication between it & the Lake of the Woods, to the said Lake of the Woods"—presuming the existence of a continuous chain of rivers and lakes that, as Tamfang noted, does not exist. But it wasn't clear what lake was meant by "Long Lake", and Phelipeaux is a nonexistent island. And these weren't even the worst problems in the specification—it also called for the border to continue straight west from Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi River (meaning the main river, not any tributary), when in fact the river is not as far north as the lake.

See Webster–Ashburton Treaty for the first attempt to fix the problems. The solution for the one Tamfang mentioned was indeed to route the border through Height of Land Portage as mentioned above. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 08:15, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia does have an article titled Boundary Waters which is short, but describes the region in question. A close inspection of Google Maps Satellite View confirms that what was noted above: ~~the Height of Land Portage~~ Watap Portage ed: corrected per below is the easternmost land border between Minnesota and Ontario. You can clearly see the deforested strip that serves as the boundary marker between the U.S. and Canada there; everything east of that is a lake or stream, part of the Pigeon River watershed. As noted, there are a few other more western land boundaries as well. Part of the issue, as noted above, is that there are basically 3 landmarks set out by various treaties that needed to be hit, and some of the treaties had to modify these land marks as the earlier treaties introduced paradoxes. The main landmarks since the Webster-Ashburton Treaty are 1) The outlet of the Pigeon River 2) the Northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods (a point so controversial, we have an entire article on it) and 3) the 49th parallel north. There were other points that turned out to be impossible to use, but basically this was it. At the time, surveying was based on the metes and bounds system, they generally tried to define borders by following natural landmarks as much as possible, only defining straight lines where following natural landmarks was impossible. Also, the idea of using a permanent landmark wasn't as common-sense as one would think, not only were meandering rivers commonly used, but trees were quite common landmarks; the Northern boundary of Massachusetts used a pine tree as a landmark. I suppose the idea at the time was that when boundaries were periodically inspected (beating the bounds), if something happened, a surveyor would be able to update a marker as needed. Anyhoo, the way that they defined the border, ultimately, involves connecting the three major landmarks noted above, following water courses that ran closest to the connecting lines where feasible, and using short line segments where it wasn't. --Jayron 32 12:20, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "...the Height of Land Portage is the easternmost land border between Minnesota and Ontario", no, the Watap Portage is E of there. See my map links above. SinisterLefty (talk) 17:16, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So it is. Good catch. Missed than one in my scans. --Jayron 32 17:21, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Height of Land one is the one that is separating the Arctic basin from the Great Lakes. That Watap portage is separating the Arrow river basin from the upper Pigeon river. Arrow river is itself a tributary of the Pigeon, but makes a big loop to the north before joining it. Kmusser (talk) 18:18, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Do you have any details on the Swamp/Monument Portage ? SinisterLefty (talk) 18:31, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, I wasn't able to identify where that was exactly. I think it's referring to [6] which is a water passage so not dividing basins at all, but probably is to narrow or swampy for boating and so still a portage. Kmusser (talk) 18:48, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I thought they meant here:[7], although there are severage smaller portages not mentioned in our articles, like [8] and [9] and [10]. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I believe those are all portages to get around rapids rather than crossing any basin divides, on the satellite imagery they all appear parallel to a water feature, for the first one you list it even has a name, that is the Knife River.Kmusser (talk) 19:27, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed the one I linked is the right one (in that is actually marked with surveying monuments). [11] Kmusser (talk) 19:37, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:45, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]