Four corners (Canada)
The four corners is a quadripoint near Template:Coord where four Canadian provinces or territories meet.<ref name=hill /><ref name=CTDC>Template:Cite web</ref> These are the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.<ref name=hill>Template:Cite book</ref> It came into being with the creation of Nunavut on April 1, 1999.
Geography
The four corners area is located between Kasba Lake to the north and Hasbala Lake to the south. It is located by an area of marginal taiga forest, which happens to be the only place in Nunavut which is not Arctic tundra or ice cap.<ref name=CTDC /> It is hundreds of kilometres from any road or railway, but can be accessed from nearby Kasba Lake Airport or Kasba Lake Water Aerodrome as well as from Points North Landing near Wollaston Lake.<ref name=butler />
During the winter of 1961–1962 (37 years prior the formation of Nunavut), a survey crew led by Lionel E. Boutiler installed 85 survey monuments along the northernmost section of the Saskatchewan–Manitoba border.<ref name="1962_survey">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The crew worked from south to north along the Second Meridian (102° west of the Greenwich Meridian) as defined in the system of Dominion Land Surveys. The final monument, designated Template:Abbr 157, officially marked the intersection of the boundaries of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. Unlike the standard survey monuments along the provincial and territorial borders, Monument 157 is an aluminum obelisk that stands about Template:Convert tall. Photos can be seen in the original survey report.<ref name="1962_survey"/> On the top of the monument is a cap that states "5 years imprisonment for removal".<ref name=butler>Template:Cite web</ref>
The exact location of Monument 157 (measured with modern GPS technologies) is Template:Coord (NAD83).<ref name="2014_survey">Template:Cite web</ref> This places it roughly Template:Cvt west of 102° W and roughly Template:Cvt south of 60°N at an elevation of Template:Cvt.<ref name="2014_survey_notes">Template:Cite web</ref>
The establishment of Nunavut in 1999 led to the creation of Canada's only quadripoint. In the legal definition of Nunavut, its border is specified as "Commencing at the intersection of 60°00′ N latitude with 102°00′ W longitude, being the intersection of the Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan borders".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Since the intersection does not lie exactly at those coordinates, the laws left a legal ambiguity regarding the exact commencement point of the boundary.
In 2014, the Survey General Branch (SGB) of Natural Resources Canada acknowledged there was a problem with the legal boundary definition; it decided that the boundary should commence at Monument 157.<ref name=cls2016>Template:Cite web</ref>
Specifically it decided that the first leg of the boundary should be a Template:Cvt geodesic line running from Monument 157 to the first turning point at Template:Coord.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This decision confirmed that in the eyes of Natural Resources Canada, the two territories and two provinces do indeed meet at a quadripoint.
In September 2014, the federal government paid for an official survey of the Template:Cvt line. The survey crew, following instructions from the SGB, installed 48 new Canada Lands survey monuments along the geodesic line.<ref name="2014_survey"/> As of 2021, the ambiguous legislation has not been repealed or updated to acknowledge the existence of the surveyed boundary, but based on legal precedent from the Dominion Land Survey, the surveyed boundary legally prevails over the description of the boundary in the original legislation.
Gallery
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See also
- Geography of Canada
- List of regions of Canada
- Four Corners Monument, a surveyed quadripoint in the United States which also has a monument.