54 40 or Fight

Before I get into the topic of the day, I’m going to make a digression. In high school I had a teacherless course in American history, and I loved it. I took American history in a summer school correspondence course in order to make room in my junior year schedule for something-or-other.  If I had had the usual history course it would have been taught, most likely, by an athletic coach who was put in social studies classes during the day. I saved myself from a dull experience and found out that history is what we choose to make of it.

I was surprised that summer to learn of the passions that have inflamed political leaders throughout American history. The Good Guys, it seems, are dedicated, persistent, eloquent, and altruistic. The Bad Guys are monomaniacs, obsessive, raucous, and self-centered. Ah, but the separation of Good Guys and Bad Guys is in the eyes of the beholder.  

     “Hang together or hang separately”…”Remember the Maine”…   ”54 40 or Fight…”

It’s that last slogan that came to mind to me recently. As the political slogan of presidential candidate and eventual winner James Polk in 1844, it threatened a third war with Great Britain. The Good Guys (or were they the Bad Guys?) said that the proper boundary of the United States in the Oregon Territory was at the edge of Russia-America, at the 54-40 parallel. Great Britain had a puny hold on the land north of the 49th parallel, which was the border for the rest of Canadian Territory. As this dispute continued, President Polk led us into war with Mexico. It really wasn’t a propitious time for another war with Great Britain, and so negotiation settled the U.S. – Canadian border at the 49th parallel. The disputed land became British Columbia and part of Canada.

You may know that the major population centers of British Columbia and other Canadian provinces are generally near their southern borders. There’s not much up at 54-40. I say that to put in perspective the fact that the Russian metropolis of Ekaterinburg is even farther north, at 56 52.  Moscow is just a smidge to the south, at 55 45 (and more than 1,000 miles to the east).

The weather in Ekaterinburg is continental, which means that like the Plains states in the U.S., it has temperature extremes. It’s cold in the winter, and it can be hot in the summer. Russians know how to deal with cold weather. Hot weather can be a problem. Since uncomfortable summer weather lasts only a few weeks, it is just something to be tolerated. I’m relearning how to live without air conditioning.

Being far north in the summer means that days are long and nights are short. It might still be light when we go to sleep. The sun is definitely up before we are.

Location, location, location. It does matter.