Great Lakes
The Great Lakes called the Laurentian Great Lakes and the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of interconnected freshwater lakes in the upper mid-east region of North America, on the Canada–United States border, which connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence River. They consist of Lakes Superior, Huron and Ontario, although hydrologically, there are four lakes, Erie and Michigan-Huron; the connected lakes form the Great Lakes Waterway. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area, second-largest by total volume, containing 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume; the total surface is 94,250 square miles, the total volume is 5,439 cubic miles less than the volume of Lake Baikal. Due to their sea-like characteristics the five Great Lakes have long been referred to as inland seas. Lake Superior is the second largest lake in the world by area, the largest freshwater lake by area. Lake Michigan is the largest lake, within one country.
The Great Lakes began to form at the end of the last glacial period around 14,000 years ago, as retreating ice sheets exposed the basins they had carved into the land which filled with meltwater. The lakes have been a major source for transportation, migration and fishing, serving as a habitat to a large number of aquatic species in a region with much biodiversity; the surrounding region is called the Great Lakes region. Though the five lakes lie in separate basins, they form a single interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin, they form a chain connecting the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, northward to Lake Ontario; the lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers, are studded with 35,000 islands. There are several thousand smaller lakes called "inland lakes," within the basin; the surface area of the five primary lakes combined is equal to the size of the United Kingdom, while the surface area of the entire basin is about the size of the UK and France combined.
Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes, within the United States. The lakes are divided among the jurisdictions of the Canadian province of Ontario and the U. S. states of Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio and New York. Both Ontario and Michigan include in their boundaries portions of four of the lakes: Ontario does not border Lake Michigan, Michigan does not border Lake Ontario. New York and Wisconsin's jurisdictions extend into two lakes, each of the remaining states into one of the lakes; as the surfaces of Lakes Superior, Huron and Erie are all the same elevation above sea level, while Lake Ontario is lower, because the Niagara Escarpment precludes all natural navigation, the four upper lakes are called the "upper great lakes". This designation, however, is not universal; those living on the shore of Lake Superior refer to all the other lakes as "the lower lakes", because they are farther south. Sailors of bulk freighters transferring cargoes from Lake Superior and northern Lake Michigan and Lake Huron to ports on Lake Erie or Ontario refer to the latter as the lower lakes and Lakes Michigan and Superior as the upper lakes.
This corresponds to thinking of Lakes Erie and Ontario as "down south" and the others as "up north". Vessels sailing north on Lake Michigan are considered "upbound" though they are sailing toward its effluent current; the Chicago River and Calumet River systems connect the Great Lakes Basin to the Mississippi River System through man-made alterations and canals. The St. Marys River, including the Soo Locks, connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron; the Straits of Mackinac connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron. The St. Clair River connects Lake Huron to Lake St. Clair; the Detroit River connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie; the Niagara River, including Niagara Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The Welland Canal, bypassing the Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario; the Saint Lawrence River and the Saint Lawrence Seaway connect Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean. Lakes Huron and Michigan are sometimes considered a single lake, called Lake Michigan–Huron, because they are one hydrological body of water connected by the Straits of Mackinac.
The straits are 120 feet deep. Lake Nipigon, connected to Lake Superior by the Nipigon River, is surrounded by sill-like formations of mafic and ultramafic igneous rock hundreds of meters high; the lake lies in the Nipigon Embayment, a failed arm of the triple junction in the Midcontinent Rift System event, estimated at 1,109 million years ago. Green Bay is an arm of Lake Michigan, along the south coast of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the east coast of Wisconsin, it is separated from the rest of the lake by the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin, the Garden Peninsula in Michigan, the chain of islands between
Red River of the North
The Red River is a North American river. Originating at the confluence of the Bois de Sioux and Otter Tail rivers between the U. S. states of Minnesota and North Dakota, it flows northward through the Red River Valley, forming most of the border of Minnesota and North Dakota and continuing into Manitoba. It empties into Lake Winnipeg, whose waters join the Nelson River and flow into Hudson Bay. Several urban areas have developed on both sides of the Red River, including those of Fargo-Moorhead and Grand Forks-East Grand Forks in states of North Dakota and Minnesota in the United States and Winnipeg in Canada; the Red is about 885 kilometres long, of which about 635 kilometres are in the United States and about 255 kilometres are in Canada. The river falls 70 metres on its trip to Lake Winnipeg, where it spreads into the vast deltaic wetland known as Netley Marsh. In the United States, the Red River is sometimes called the Red River of the North; this distinguishes it from the so-called Red River of the South, a tributary of the Atchafalaya River that forms part of the border between Texas and Arkansas.
Long a highway for trade, the Red has been designated as a Canadian Heritage River. The watershed of the Red River was part of Rupert's Land, the concession established by the British Hudson's Bay Company in north central North America; the Red was a key trade route for the company, contributed to the settlement of British North America. The river was long used by fur traders, including the French and the Métis people, who established a community in this area before the British defeated France in the Seven Years' War. Following that, they took over French territory in Canada. Settlers of the Red River Colony established farming along the river, their primary settlement developed as Winnipeg, Manitoba. What became known as the Red River Trails, nineteenth-century oxcart trails developed by the Métis, supported the fur trade and these settlements, they contributed to further development of the region on both sides of the international border. The Red River begins at the confluence of the Bois de Sioux and Otter Tail rivers, on the border of Wahpeton, North Dakota and Breckenridge, Minnesota.
Downstream, it is bordered by the twin cities of Fargo, North Dakota – Moorhead and Grand Forks, North Dakota – East Grand Forks, Minnesota. It continues north to the province of Manitoba in Canada. Manitoba's capital, Winnipeg, is at the Red's confluence with the Assiniboine River, at a point called The Forks. Together with the Assiniboine, the Red River encloses the endorheic basin of Devils' Lake and Stump Lake; the Red flows further north before draining into Lake Winnipeg which drains through the Nelson River into Hudsons Bay, both part of the Hudson Bay watershed. The mouth of the Red River forms; the Netley Marsh is west of the Red and the Libau Marsh is east, forming a 26,000-hectare wetland. Southern Manitoba has a comparatively long frost-free season, between 120 and 140 days in the Red River Valley; the Red River flows across the flat lake bed of the ancient glacial Lake Agassiz, an enormous glacial lake created at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation from meltwaters of the Laurentide ice sheet.
As this continental glacier decayed, its meltwaters formed the lake. Over thousands of years, sediments precipitated to the bottom of the lakebed; these lacustrine soils are the parent soils of today's Red River Valley. The river is young; the word "valley" is a misnomer. While the Red River drains the region, it did not create a valley wider than a few hundred feet; the much wider floodplain is the lake bed of the ancient glacial lake. It is remarkably flat; the river and small in most seasons, does not have the energy to cut a gorge. Instead it meanders across the silty bottomlands in its progress north. In consequence, high water has nowhere to go, except to spread across the old lakebed in "overland flooding". Heavy snows or rains on saturated or frozen soil, have caused a number of catastrophic floods, which are made worse by the fact that snowmelt starts in the warmer south, waters flowing northward are dammed or slowed by ice; these periodic floods have the effect of refilling, in the ancient lake.
Major floods in historic times include those of 1826, 1897, 1950, 1997, 2009, 2011, there has been significant flooding many years in between. Geologists have found evidence of many other floods in prehistoric times of equal or greater size; these "paleofloods" are known from their effects on local landforms, have been the subject of scholarly studies. After the disastrous 1950 flood, which resulted in extensive property damage and losses in Winnipeg, Manitoba Province undertook flood prevention by constructing the Red River Floodway. Completed in 1968, it diverts floodwaters around the city to less settled areas further up the river. Grand Forks, North Dakota, East Grand Forks, suffered widespread destruction in the flood of 1997. 75% of the population in the former city was evacuated, all of the latter. Many of the residential areas along the rivers were inundated and all the homes had to be destroyed. Afterward a massive flood protection project was undertaken to protect both cities. On May 8, 1950 the Red River reached its highest level at Winnipeg since 1861.
Eight dikes protecting Winnipeg g
Civil township
A civil township is a used unit of local government in the United States, subordinate to a county. The term town is used in New England, New York, Wisconsin to refer to the equivalent of the civil township in these states. Specific responsibilities and the degree of autonomy vary based on each state. Civil townships are distinct from survey townships, but in states that have both, the boundaries coincide and may geographically subdivide a county; the U. S. Census Bureau classifies civil townships as minor civil divisions. There are 20 states with civil townships. Township functions are overseen by a governing board and a clerk or trustee. Township officers include justice of the peace, road commissioner, assessor and surveyor. In the 20th century, many townships added a township administrator or supervisor to the officers as an executive for the board. In some cases, townships run local libraries, senior citizen services, youth services, disabled citizen services, emergency assistance, cemetery services.
In some states, a township and a municipality, coterminous with that township may wholly or consolidate their operations. Depending on the state, the township government has varying degrees of authority. In the Upper Midwestern states near the Great Lakes, civil townships, are but not always, overlaid on survey townships; the degree to which these townships are functioning governmental entities varies from state to state and in some cases within a state. For example, townships in the northern part of Illinois are active in providing public services — such as road maintenance, after-school care, senior services — whereas townships in southern Illinois delegate these services to the county. Most townships in Illinois provide services such as snow removal, senior transportation, emergency services to households residing in unincorporated parts of the county; the townships in Illinois each have a township board, whose board members were called township trustees, a single township supervisor. In contrast, civil townships in Indiana are operated in a consistent manner statewide and tend to be well organized, with each served by a single township trustee and a three-member board.
Civil townships in these states are not incorporated, nearby cities may annex land in adjoining townships with relative ease. In Michigan, general law townships are corporate entities, some can become reformulated as charter townships, a status intended to protect against annexation from nearby municipalities and which grants the township some home rule powers similar to cities. In Wisconsin, civil townships are known as "towns" rather than townships, but they function the same as in neighboring states. In Minnesota, state statute refers to such entities as towns yet requires them to have a name in the form "Name Township". In both documents and conversation, "town" and "township" are used interchangeably. Minnesota townships can be either Non-Urban or Urban, but this is not reflected in the township's name. In Ohio, a city or village is overlaid onto a township unless it withdraws by establishing a paper township. Where the paper township does not extend to the city limits, property owners pay taxes for both the township and municipality, though these overlaps are sometimes overlooked by mistake.
Ten other states allow townships and municipalities to overlap. In Kansas, some civil townships provide services such as road maintenance and fire protection services not provided by the county. In New England, the states are subdivided into towns, which are functioning municipal corporations that provide most local services. While counties exist in New England, for the most part they serve as dividing lines for state judicial systems. With the exception of a few remote areas of New Hampshire and Maine, every square foot of New England lies within the borders of an incorporated town. New England has cities, most of which are towns whose residents have voted to replace the town meeting form of government with a city form. In portions of New Hampshire and Maine, county subdivisions that are not incorporated are referred to as townships, or by other terms such as "gore", "grant", "location", "plantation", or "purchase". In New York, counties are further subdivided into towns and cities, the principal forms of local government.
Towns fulfill a function similar to those of townships in other states. As is the case in most of New England, every square foot of New York's territory is incorporated. New York towns contain one or more incorporated villages, village residents pay both town and village taxes. Towns include a number of unincorporated hamlets. A Pennsylvania township is a unit of local government, responsible for services such as police departments, local road and street maintenance, it acts the same as a borough. Townships were established based on convenient geographical boundaries and vary in size from six to fifty-two square miles. A New Jersey township is similar, in that it is a form of municipal government equal in status to a village, borough, or city, provides similar services to a Pennsylvania township. In the South, outside cities and towns there is no local government other than the county. North Carolina is no exception to that rule, but it does have townships as minor geographical subdivisions of counties, including
State of emergency
A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to perform actions that it would not be permitted to do. A government can declare such a state during civil unrest, or armed conflict; such declarations alert citizens to change their normal behavior and orders government agencies to implement emergency plans. Justitium is its equivalent in Roman law—a concept in which the senate could put forward a final decree, not subject to dispute. States of emergency can be used as a rationale or pretext for suspending rights and freedoms guaranteed under a country's constitution or basic law; the procedure for and legality of doing so vary by country. Under international law and freedoms may be suspended during a state of emergency. All rights that can be derogated from are listed in the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights. Non-derogable rights cannot be suspended. Non-derogable rights are listed in Article 4 of the ICCPR; some countries have made it illegal to modify emergency law or the constitution during the emergency.
Constitutions are the private individuals of that country. The International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights is an international law document signed and ratified by states. Therefore, the Covenant applies to only those persons acting in an official capacity, not private individuals. However, States Parties to the Covenant are expected to integrate it into national legislation; the state of emergency must be publicly declared and the Secretary-General of the United Nations and all other States Parties to the Covenant must be notified to declare the reason for the emergency, the date on which the emergency is to start, the derogations that may take place, with the timeframe of the emergency and the date in which the emergency is expected to finish. Although this is common protocol stipulated by the ICCPR, its monitoring Committee of experts has no sanction power and its recommendations are therefore not always followed. Though uncommon in democracies, dictatorial regimes declare a state of emergency, prolonged indefinitely for the life of the regime, or for extended periods of time so that derogations can be used to override human rights of their citizens protected by the International Covenant on Civil and political rights.
In some situations, martial law is declared, allowing the military greater authority to act. In other situations, emergency is not declared and de facto measures taken or decree-law adopted by the government. Ms. Nicole Questiaux and Mr. Leandro Despouy, two consecutive United Nations Special Rapporteurs, have recommended to the international community to adopt the following "principles" to be observed during a state or de facto situation of emergency: Principles of Legality, Notification, Time Limitation, Exceptional Threat, Non-Discrimination, Compatibility and Complementarity of the Various Norms of International Law. Article 4 to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, permits states to derogate from certain rights guaranteed by the ICCPR in "time of public emergency". Any measures derogating from obligations under the Covenant, must be to only the extent required by the exigencies of the situation, must be announced by the State Party to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The European Convention on Human Rights and American Convention on Human Rights have similar derogatory provisions. No derogation is permitted to the International Labour Conventions; some political theorists, such as Carl Schmitt, have argued that the power to decide the initiation of the state of emergency defines sovereignty itself. In State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben criticized this idea, arguing that the mechanism of the state of emergency deprives certain people of their civil and political rights, producing his interpretation of homo sacer. In many democratic states there are a selection of legal definitions for specific states of emergency, when the constitution of the State is in abeyance depending on the nature of the perceived threat to the general public. In order of severity these may include: Martial law when civil rights are restricted by the imposition of military force within a Sovereign state, for example during a period of extreme threat of invasion or actual hostilities by foreign forces state of siege when the civil rights of specified persons or groups such as political activists are to be curtailed, for example to prevent an insurrection or organised acts of treason by suspected agents provocateurs civil emergency dealing with disaster areas and requiring the deployment of extraordinary resources to contain dangerous situations such as natural disasters or extensive malicious property damage such as may occur during rioting or by arson.
As well as regular emergency services sometimes military forces may be assigned to deliver aid under dangerous conditions or to prevent looting Sometimes, the state of emergency can be abused by being invoked. An example would be to allow a state to suppress
Minnesota
Minnesota is a state in the Upper Midwest and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U. S. state on May 11, 1858, created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory. The state has a large number of lakes, is known by the slogan the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", its official motto is L'Étoile du Nord. Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 22nd most populous of the U. S. states. This area is the center of transportation, industry and government, while being home to an internationally known arts community; the remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture. Minnesota was inhabited by various indigenous peoples for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. French explorers and fur traders began exploring the region in the 17th century, encountering the Dakota and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe tribes. Much of what is today Minnesota was part of the vast French holding of Louisiana, purchased by the United States in 1803.
Following several territorial reorganizations, Minnesota in its current form was admitted as the country's 32nd state on May 11, 1858. Like many Midwestern states, it remained centered on lumber and agriculture. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of European immigrants from Scandinavia and Germany, began to settle the state, which remains a center of Scandinavian American and German American culture. In recent decades, immigration from Asia, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America has broadened its demographic and cultural composition; the state's economy has diversified, shifting from traditional activities such as agriculture and resource extraction to services and finance. Minnesota's standard of living index is among the highest in the United States, the state is among the best-educated and wealthiest in the nation; the word Minnesota comes from the Dakota name for the Minnesota River: The river got its name from one of two words in the Dakota language,'Mní sóta' which means "clear blue water", or'Mnißota', which means cloudy water.
Native Americans demonstrated the name to early settlers by dropping milk into water and calling it mnisota. Many places in the state have similar names, such as Minnehaha Falls, Minneota, Minnetonka and Minneapolis, a combination of mni and polis, the Greek word for "city". Minnesota is the second northernmost U. S. state and northernmost contiguous state. Its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods county is the only part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th parallel; the state is part of the U. S. region known as part of North America's Great Lakes Region. It shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and a land and water border with Wisconsin to the east. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota are to the west, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba are to the north. With 86,943 square miles, or 2.25% of the United States, Minnesota is the 12th-largest state. Minnesota has gneisses that are about 3.6 billion years old. About 2.7 billion years ago, basaltic lava poured out of cracks in the floor of the primordial ocean.
The roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. Following a period of volcanism 1.1 billion years ago, Minnesota's geological activity has been more subdued, with no volcanism or mountain formation, but with repeated incursions of the sea, which left behind multiple strata of sedimentary rock. In more recent times, massive ice sheets at least one kilometer thick ravaged the state's landscape and sculpted its terrain; the Wisconsin glaciation left 12,000 years ago. These glaciers covered all of Minnesota except the far southeast, an area characterized by steep hills and streams that cut into the bedrock; this area is known as the Driftless Zone for its absence of glacial drift. Much of the remainder of the state outside the northeast has 50 feet or more of glacial till left behind as the last glaciers retreated. Gigantic Lake Agassiz formed in the northwest 13,000 years ago, its bed created the fertile Red River valley, its outflow, glacial River Warren, carved the valley of the Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi downstream from Fort Snelling.
Minnesota is geologically quiet today. The state's high point is Eagle Mountain at 2,301 feet, only 13 miles away from the low of 601 feet at the shore of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding dramatic local differences in elevation, much of the state is a rolling peneplain. Two major drainage divides meet in Minnesota's northeast in rural Hibbing, forming a triple watershed. Precipitation can follow the Mississippi River south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Saint Lawrence Seaway east to the Atlantic Ocean, or the Hudson Bay watershed to the Arctic Ocean; the state's nickname, "Land of 10,000 Lakes", is apt, as there are 11,842 Minnesota lakes over 10 acres in size. Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior is the largest at 962,700 acres and deepest body of wate
Soo Line Railroad
The Soo Line Railroad is the primary United States railroad subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway, one of seven U. S. Class I railroads, controlled through the Soo Line Corporation. Although it is named for the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad, known as the Soo Line after the phonetic spelling of Sault, it was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of that company with two other CP subsidiaries, the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad and Wisconsin Central Railroad, it is the successor to other Class I railroads, including the Minneapolis and Southern Railway and Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. On the other hand, a large amount of mileage was spun off in 1987 to Wisconsin Central Ltd. now part of the Canadian National Railway. The Soo Line and the Delaware and Hudson Railway, the CP's other major subsidiary, presently do business as the Canadian Pacific Railway, most equipment has been repainted into the CP's scheme, but the U. S. Surface Transportation Board groups all CP's U.
S. subsidiaries under the Soo Line name for reporting purposes. The Minneapolis headquarters are located in the Canadian Pacific Plaza building, having moved from the nearby Soo Line Building; the company's main line begins at Portal, North Dakota on the Canada–US border, extends southeast along former MStP&SSM trackage to the Twin Cities. Ex-Milwaukee Road trackage takes the Soo Line from the Twin Cities to Chicago via Milwaukee. Between Chicago and Detroit, where the CP-owned Detroit River Tunnel connects back into Canada, the Soo Line has trackage rights over the Norfolk Southern Railway and haulage rights over CSX Transportation. Major branches include a connection from the border at Noyes to Glenwood, Minnesota and, until it was sold to the Indiana Rail Road in 1983, a line from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky. Through trackage rights over the BNSF Railway, the Soo Line serves Duluth from the Twin Cities. At the end of 1970, the Soo Line operated 4693 miles of road on 6104 miles of track.
The present Soo Line Railroad Company was incorporated October 19, 1949 in Minnesota as the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad, as part of the plan for reorganizing the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway and subsidiary Mineral Range Railroad. When CP consolidated several subsidiaries on January 1, 1961, it used this company to merge the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad and Wisconsin Central Railroad into, renamed it to the present name, Soo Line Railroad; the Soo Line gained control of the Minneapolis and Southern Railway, a Twin Cities-area short line, in June 1982. Passenger service was eliminated by the 1961 merger, but several trains remained for a few more years; these were a Saint Paul to Duluth daytime train known only as Trains 62 and 63. It was discontinued in December 1963, the western Canada cars were handled on the Winnipeger for two more summers before they too were pulled; the Soo Line's last passenger train was the Copper Country Limited, a joint service with the Milwaukee Road inherited from the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic.
This Chicago-Champion-Calumet service was discontinued May 8, 1968. In addition there were several mixed trains, with additional ones created to enable the discontinuance of the Saint Paul to Portal passenger train; some mixed train services gained notoriety. In 1984, CP incorporated the Soo Line Corporation in Minnesota as a holding company, exchanging stock in December to give the Soo Line Corporation total control over the railroad. Two months on February 19, 1985, the Soo Line purchased the property of the bankrupt Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad and assigned it to a newly created subsidiary, The Milwaukee Road, Inc; this company and the MN&S were both merged into the Soo Line Railroad effective January 1, 1986. To cut costs, the Soo Line created the Lake States Transportation Division on February 10, 1986 to operate the less-important lines, including the ex-Wisconsin Central line between Chicago and the Twin Cities. Unable to implement its proposed labor rule changes, the Soo Line sold the 2,000-mile LSTD to a new regional railroad, Wisconsin Central Ltd. in 1987 for $133 million.
In 1990, CP gained full control of the Soo Line Corporation, of which it had owned about 56% of the common stock. In the 2000s, the Soo line was consolidated into CP. Only a few Soo locomotives remain in the old paint scheme. Most have been scrapped; the railroad ran several long distance named trains. Laker, Minneapolis - Duluth - Ashland Soo-Dominion, Chicago - Seattle Winnipeger, St. Paul to Winnipeg, Manitoba The Presidents of the Soo Line Railroad were: Leonard H. Murray, 1961–1978. President of the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad. Thomas M. Beckley, 1978–1983 Dennis Miles Cavanaugh, 1983–1986, 1987–1989 Robert C. Gilmore, 1986–1987 Edwin V. Dodge, 1989–1996 Some of the railroad's diesel locomotives have been preserved: Soo 700, an EMD GP30, at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum, Duluth. Restored for use on their North Shore Scenic Railroad. Soo 703
Pembina–Emerson Border Crossing
The Pembina–Emerson Border Crossing connects the city of Pembina, North Dakota and community of Emerson, Manitoba. It is connected by Interstate 29 and U. S. Route 81 on the American side, by Manitoba Highway 75 on the Canadian side. Over one million travelers are processed at this border crossing each year, making it the second busiest along the Canada–United States border west of the Great Lakes, behind only the Pacific Highway Border Crossing, its location along an international trade corridor makes this an important commercial port. Cross-border trade is valued at CA$20 billion each year. In 1871, Emerson was established as the first land border Customs station in Canada, it was created to protect and collect duty for trade with the Hudson's Bay Company trading post, attacked in a Fenian Raid, subsequently liberated by the U. S. Cavalry earlier that year; the original customs building in Emerson still stands today. For many years, there were two roads entering Canada at Emerson; the popular Jefferson Highway entered at Noyes and the Meridian Highway entered from Pembina, North Dakota.
All Canada-bound traffic was directed to the brick Customs building in downtown Emerson, which has since been converted into the Emerson Health Centre. In the mid-1950s, Canada built separate inspection stations at the border on both roads; the crossing across from Pembina was called "West Lynne" and the larger crossing across from Noyes was known as "Emerson East". The modern Pembina-West Lynne border crossing opened in 1957 with the completion of I-29; the facilities on the former U. S. Route 81. Following the reconfiguration of PTH 75 and PTH 29, most U. S.-bound traffic was diverted to the Pembina crossing. The Canadian and American governments closed the Emerson East and Noyes border stations in 2003 and 2006 and merged rail inspection operations with the ports at West Lynne and Pembina; the West Lynne border station was renamed Emerson following the closure of Emerson East in 2003. Both countries are in the process of extensively upgrading their facilities and road infrastructure at the Pembina-Emerson Crossing, a project that started in 2017 and will take several years to complete.
The U. S. border station was upgraded in 1996. Located near this crossing is Fort Dufferin, a former Canadian police post, immigration station, base of the North American Boundary Commission, which surveyed and marked the international border as defined in the Treaty of 1818; the number of persons crossing the border illegally into Canada in the Emerson-Pembina area spiked following U. S. President Donald Trump's Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States executive order in January 2017; the majority of recent border jumpers are immigrants from African nations seeking asylum in Canada to avoid potential deportation from the U. S. Although persons claiming refugee status are not permitted to migrate to Canada from the U. S. under the two countries' Safe Third Country Agreement, asylum seekers who have crossed the border illegally in some cases have been allowed to stay in Canada while their application is processed. This practice of cross the border illegally is not without danger during the cold prairie winter.
On December 24, 2016, two Ghanaian men made it across the border by walking several miles along the Red River in sub-zero temperatures. In May 2017, a 57-year old Ghanaian asylum seeker died of hypothermia while attempting to cross into Canada at Noyes, Minnesota; the increased levels of asylum seekers trying to enter Canada at the Pembina-Emerson and other regions along the international border have garnered international media attention and resulted in the Canadian government renegotiating the Safe Country Agreement with the American government. List of Canada–United States border crossings Emerson, Manitoba
