4 ms·
looks at map in confusion Since the western side of the state is quite obviously more than 100 miles from Canada I had to look this up. Apparently it's because
by fooqux 1y ago
looks at map in confusion
Since the western side of the state is quite obviously more than 100 miles from Canada I had to look this up. Apparently it's because the lakes count as international borders. That seems pretty crazy to me, especially in the case of Lake Michigan.
- harikb 1y agoForget lakes, it can be interpreted as any airport with an international flight. We are all within "100 miles of a border" even when walking our dog in the morning.
- RajT88 1y agoI am sure they claim this from time to time, but don't do so in writing. Lake Michigan is considered a "coast" (which Chicagoans kind of like! See: "Third coast" stuff), but that bizarrely puts their jurisdiction ~70 miles into the Illinois cornfields based on them saying they treat the lake as a "coast".
- thaumasiotes 1y agoThe lakeshore is a coast. For border control purposes, it's a large body of water that borders the US and other countries. (Granted, there's a fairly tight bottleneck coming from Lake Huron.) There's no argument for not treating it as an oceanic border. 100 miles from the seashore also puts you into some clearly inland areas. Most locations 100 miles from the sea aren't organized around their "proximity" to the ocean.
- RajT88 1y agoI mean - the argument for not treating the whole thing as an oceanic border is the fact that the territorial line of US and Canada Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario - but not at all Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan does not touch Canada. There are shipping ports along the shores of Lake Michigan, but it's an argument that it should not be treated as an oceanic border. No matter how you measure it, Chicago is hundreds of miles from the Canadian border.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> Lake Michigan does not touch Canada. This is like saying that the Atlantic Ocean can't touch Norway because the North Sea gets in the way. That's not an argument.
- RajT88 1y agoAstute readers of maps will recognize that The Upper Peninsula of Michigan gets in the way of Canada and Lake Michigan. QED: It's a fine argument among people who have looked at the map.
- thaumasiotes 1y agoThose would have to be some extremely dim readers of maps. If you can read a map, and you know how water transport works, you'll see that what's getting in the way is, as I mentioned above, Lake Huron.