I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest map floating around social media, but it’s a map showing Canada’s population mean– basically, if you took the location where every single Canadian lives, mashed all those Canadians together, and put them at a central point on a map, you’d find out that the average Canadian lives just west of Big Bay.
Scientifically & mathematically, it’s totally accurate. But it’s because of maps like that that we see so many inaccurate maps.
And just let me state, for the record, that the U.P. is neither part of Canada nor part of Wisconsin, no matter what TV talk shows or Mountain Dew seem to think. Although, at least Mountain Dew did make up for it.
I think we all know the story about how the state of Michigan was given the U.P. as a consolation prize after losing Toledo to Ohio. I personally think that Michigan got the better end of the deal, although it has led to a lot of confusion among the geographically illiterate. I mean, sure, the UP’s technically not connected to the rest of Michigan, and we’re technically closer to Canada than the Lower Peninsula, but we are part of Michigan.
Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to do the Michigan “hand thing.”
Sometimes, though, I wonder if it would be easier on certain people if we were part of Canada or part of Wisconsin. Think about it–there are good and bad points to both. For instance, if we were part of Canada…well, half the people of the U.P. already have the accent.
Although if we were Canadian, we could have ended up being called something else…
The same goes for Wisconsin– because we’re physically connected, it would be very easy for us to become part of the Badger state. But on the flip side, it would probably require us to actually like cheese.
…and the Packers.
In the end, I guess the U.P.’s just kind of like that long-lost cousin you might occasionally see at family gatherings. You know they’re part of the family. You just don’t know exactly how they fit in.
