Following the Louisiana Purchase by the United States in 1803, it was generally agreed that the boundary between the new territory and British North America was along the watershed between the Missouri River and Mississippi River basins on one side and the Hudson Bay basin on the other. However, it is often difficult to precisely determine the location of a watershed in a region of level plains, such as in central North America. The British and American committees that met after the War of 1812 to resolve boundary disputes recognized there would be much animosity in surveying the watershed boundary, and agreed on a simpler border solution in the Treaty of 1818: the 49th parallel. Both sides gained and lost some territory by this convention, but the United States gained more than it lost, in particular securing title to the Red River Basin. This treaty established the boundary only between the line of longitude of the northwesternmost point of Lake of the Woods, on the east, and the Rocky Mountains, on the west. West of the Rockies, the treaty established joint occupation of the Oregon Country by both parties; east of Lake of the Woods, the boundary established in the Treaty of Paris would be retained.
Although the Convention of 1818 settled the boundary, neither country was immediately able to control over the territories on its side of the line; effective control still rested with local First Nations peoples, mainly the MÃtis, Assiniboine, Lakota, and Blackfoot. Their power was gradually ceded by conquest and treaty during the several decades that followed. Among these peoples, the 49th parallel was nicknamed the Medicine Line because of its seemingly magical ability to prevent U.S. soldiers from crossing it.[5]
The Northwest Angle is the only part of the contiguous 48 states that goes north of the 49th parallel. The Treaty of Paris called for the boundary between the US and British territory to pass through the most northwesterly point of Lake of the Woods, and this was retained even after an 1818 treaty set the boundary west of that point to follow the 49th parallel.
At the time that the United States and Great Britain agreed on the 49th parallel as the boundary, much of the North American continent had not yet been mapped. After the boundary was established, British surveyors discovered that Point Roberts lay south of the 49th parallel. The British requested that the United States cede the territory to Great Britain, but no action was ever taken.
In 1909 the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada signed and ratified a treaty confirming the original survey lines as the official and permanent international border. Nevertheless, in 2002 the difference of the survey from the geographical 49th parallel was argued in front of the Washington Supreme Court in the case of State of Washington v. Norman,[6] under the premise that Washington did not properly incorporate the portions of land north of the geographical 49th parallel, as laid out by detailed GPS surveying. The court decided against the premise, ruling that the internationally surveyed boundary also served as the state boundary, regardless of its actual position.
49th Parallel is a 1941 British and Canadian war drama film. It was the third film made by the British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was released in the United States as The Invaders.[4] The British Ministry of Information approached Michael Powell to make a propaganda film for them, suggesting he make "a film about mine-sweeping". Instead, Powell decided to make a film to help sway opinion in the then-neutral United States. Said Powell, "I hoped it might scare the pants off the Americans" and thus bring them into the war.[5] Screenwriter Emeric Pressburger remarked, "Goebbels considered himself an expert on propaganda, but I thought I'd show him a thing or two". Powell persuaded the British and Canadian governments and started location filming in 1940, but by the time the film appeared, in March 1942, the United States, which had been trying to stay out of the war in Europe, had been drawn into taking sides against Germany.
The original choice to play the German officer, Lieutenant Hirth, was their production company's stalwart Esmond Knight. Knight had become involved in training Local Defence Volunteers (better remembered as the Home Guard) after the evacuation of Dunkirk and, in late 1940, he was accepted for training with the Royal Navy.[6] That training would have conflicted with work on 49th Parallel.
Critics' reviews of 49th Parallel were generally favourable, with the New York Times reviewer effusing, "Tense action... excellent performances. An absorbing and exciting film!" and Variety concluding, "This is an important and effective film. Opening scenes promise much, and it lives up to expectations. Every part, to the smallest bits, is magnificently played...."[23]
Prologue: I see a long, straight line athwart a continent. No chain of forts, or deep flowing river, or mountain range, but a line drawn by men upon a map, nearly a century ago, accepted with a handshake, and kept ever since. A boundary which divides two nations, yet marks their friendly meeting ground. The 49th parallel: the only undefended frontier in the world.
At once a compelling piece of anti-isolationist propaganda and a quick-witted wartime thriller, 49th Parallel is a classic early work from the inimitable British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. When a Nazi U-boat crew, headed by the ruthless Eric Portman, is stranded in Canada during the thick of World War II, the men evade capture by hiding out in a series of rural communities, before trying to cross the border into the still-neutral United States. Both soul-stirring and delightfully entertaining, 49th Parallel features a colorful cast of characters played by larger-than-life actors Laurence Olivier, Raymond Massey, Anton Walbrook, and Leslie Howard.
The border follows the straight line of the 49th Parallel across the western part of the country for 1,200 miles, half the width of the continent. This boundary is straight and flat, until it gets to the Rockies, where few man-made structures cross the line. This part of the border was initially surveyed between 1872 and 1876, and was the last stretch of the boundary to be fixed along the contiguous United States. Though the 49th Parallel border could be the longest, straightest, physical line on earth, it is not perfectly straight, as it was based on surveying practices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The accepted boundary, complete with its wanderings of up to a quarter mile from the true 49th, is now fixed, set in a thousand monuments of iron, aluminum-bronze, steel, or concrete, anchored along its path, no matter how mountainous, or monotonous.
Google map.
From east to west, the 49th Parallel boundary begins in the waters of the Lake of the Woods, in Minnesota, three miles off Buffalo Point. This is where the line from the Northwest Angle comes due south, for 26 miles, and hits the 49th, forming a right angle.
CLUI photo.
In the shadow of the towers, further west down the 49th boundary, is a chapel, the only building in the Garden that is crossed by the line. It was opened in 1970, and is the nondenominational spiritual heart of the Garden.
Google map.
With 545 miles along the 49th Parallel, Montana has the longest stretch of the straight border. But with only 13 open crossing points, averaging out to one every 42 miles, it is the least crossed.
Google map.
It is 63 miles west on the line from the previous official crossing at Chief Mountain, to the next, the Roosville/Grasmere crossing. This is the second longest uncrossed stretch on the 49th Parallel border.
49th Parallel, a rap group comprised of five friends who have been hanging out for as long as they can remember, focuses on fun and friendship at the core of everything they create, and their goal is to share that collective passion with everyone. Their debut album was the result of an artist residency on Lopez Island and a partnership with YouTube channel Yes Theory. Since then, 49th Parallel has set themselves on a path to build their community and share their music.
Made up of Aidan (vocals), Cormac (beats), Nicky (beats), Sam (vocals), and Vasili (vocals), you can find 49th Parallel at the Sound Off! semifinals on Saturday, February 22. Here's what the five-piece hip-hop collective had to say before they take the Sky Church stage:
On June 15, 1846, Britain and the United States sign the Treaty of Oregon establishing the 49th parallel as the primary international boundary in the Pacific Northwest. Since 1818, the entire region, including what is now Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and large portions of British Columbia, has been under joint occupancy, in which citizens of both countries travel and trade freely. In 1845, Americans adopt the phrase "Fifty Four Forty or Fight!", referring to the latitude line of 54 degrees and 40 minutes, a more northern border that would give the U.S. a large portion of what is Canada today. However, the U.S. proves unwilling to actually go to war over this issue, because it is facing war with Mexico on the southern border. So the U.S. and Britain compromise by extending the 49th parallel border -- long established east of the Rockies -- all the way to the Pacific. In the only exception to the 49-degree line, both parties agree to allow the border to swing south around Vancouver Island, which gives Britain all of Vancouver Island. The mainland border between the U.S. and Canada will remain unchanged from that time onward.
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