Wisconsin Doesn’t Share a Border with Canada and that is a Needless Hassle for Students of Geography.
Could it be made to?
It’s a common misconception that Wisconsin shares a border with Canada. Even Wikipedia seems to be a bit confused about whether it does.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_border_states_of_the_United_States Border with Canada. Thirteen states lie on the U.S.-Canada border.The U.S. states of Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin do not share a direct geographic border with Canada. They do, however, possess customs facilities due to their place along the Great Lakes, which leads to the Canadian border.
The reason is that Minnesota State shares a border with Michigan State near the middle of Lake Superior, cutting Wisconsin off from Canada.
I propose that Wisconsin trades some (probably watery) territory with a US State that does border on Canada, so that Wisconsin start to unequivocally border Canada. This would make it significantly easier for people all over the world to recall which States of the US share a border with Canada.
It’s easy to learn that Lake Michigan is entirely within the State of Michigan and therefore Illinois and Indiana, of course, don’t border Canada. Furthermore, Illinois and Indiana don’t look like they should border Canada, as they are not in what most people think of as the northern row of US States, and so I don’t think many people imagine those two border Canada.
The territory traded might be tiny parts of the middle of Lake Superior, and so no one would be inconvenienced, correct me if I’m wrong. There would be no need to involve Canada, though I expect that Canadians would also be glad to have the Wisconsin question resolved, and have an extra US State sharing a border with their nation.
If Wisconsin bordered Canada, a lot of things would be a lot simpler and easier to learn. Teachers could say (and learners say to themselves) with a clear conscience that all the US States east of the Mississippi that are cut by the 45th parallel border Canada. There would no longer be any need to explain that Wisconsin doesn’t border Canada, and why not, which is not only time consuming but somewhat unsatisfying, and irritating, because one feels like one is on shaky ground, that one is splitting hairs perhaps or “engaging in semantics”. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.
Millions of people all over the world wrongly think and say that Wisconsin borders Canada. Making it true would make these people correct without them even knowing what happened.
