March 29, 2024

Life on the 45th

April 22, 2016

The 45th parallel north is a line of latitude running all the way around the globe. To northern Michiganians, it’s also a very special mark of the region where we live, as evidenced by its use in such local projects and companies as Parallel 45 Theatre, Latitude 45 Cycling Store, Parallel 45 Vines and Wines, Studio 45 Dance and 45th Parallel Realty. What else lies along this line, connecting us to cities, towns and people around the world? Let’s take a look, starting on South Manitou Island and heading east.

MY FELLOW AMERICANS

After South Manitou, the line (and accompanying markers) makes several more distinctive stops in Michigan, including the Leelanau Peninsula, the Old Mission Lighthouse, Grand Traverse Bay, Atlanta and Alpena, before leaving the state. Don’t forget that the line itself is approximately halfway between the equator and the North Pole (although we seem to have more of the latter weather than the former.) Once the line crosses Lake Huron, it’s next seen in Ferndale, Ontario, at a place called PJ’s Groceries that markets itself as the grocery store that’s halfway from the North Pole, with a polar bear as its mascot. Next up, the 45th skates below Ottawa and Montreal, Canada, and reenters the U.S. in Vermont and New Hampshire before carrying on through Maine and Nova Scotia.

EURO VISION

Next up is a long journey across the Atlantic Ocean, where the 45th will travel well south of England before hitting land again in France, where elegant monuments in Valence (a stone statuette) and Vercors (a half globe) pay it homage; Valence is a sizeable city of about 60,000 people, while Vercors is a mountainous region known for skiing.

From there, the line treks through Italy, most notably marked by an obelisk in the Piazza Statuto in Turin, and then through Croatia and Serbia, which mark the line with a giant sundial and a small pyramid with a gold cap, respectively. In Ploietsti, Romania, it’s marked with a red and white sculpture that looks like an airplane wing.

Acknowledgement of the line is pretty scarce as it moves through Russia; passes by the Vozrozhdeniya Island peninsula, site of an abandoned Soviet bioweapons laboratory on the border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan; runs just below Lake Balkhash, the 13th largest continental lake in the world; and on into Mongolia and China, and again into Russia, before meeting the Sea of Japan.

EAST TO WEST

As soon as the 45th parallel hits Japan, it once again becomes something of a geographic celebrity, with a shining monument in Sarobetsu National Park and a roadside marker in Wakkanai, the northernmost city in Japan, which was used as an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine base during World War II.

After Japan, it’s another lonely journey across a major ocean, this time the Pacific, before it hits land in Oregon, on coastal highway 101, where an unassuming sign can be found roadside, just north of Lincoln City, home to the Chinook Winds Casino. After another half-dozen or so markers in Oregon, the 45th continues through Idaho and through the Clarks Fork River, which runs through parts of both Idaho and Montana.

Next stop: Yellowstone National Park, which may host one of the most photographed of all the 45th parallel markers. The rustic wooden sign marking the spot sits alongside the Gardiner River in a roadside turnaround just north of Mammoth Hot Springs. The next place of note is another pretty big one for geography buffs: the Tri-State Corner, where Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming meet.

RIGHT NEXT DOOR

Once the 45th passes through the remainder of quiet South Dakota, it’s on its way back to our neighborhood, with several more stops next door before it arrives, once again, in Lake Michigan. First, Minneapolis, Minn., where a boulder marker sits in a grassy park triangle.

Then it hits Wisconsin, where the 45th parallel meets one of its notable map-marker brethren: a “45x90,” one of only four points on Earth that are halfway between the geographical poles, the equator, the prime meridian and the 180th meridian.

Next, the line hits Door Peninsula, separating Green Bay from Lake Michigan, and then we’re back at South Manitou. From a familiar island to a quirky grocery store, from obelisks and lonely lakes to submarine bases, bright monuments and famous national parks, what we’re connected to gives the 45th parallel its rich heritage.

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