Last week’s column about Dan Szymanski and his 1988 trip around the outer edge of Minnesota reminded me of several map games and challenges I once created.

Friday, August 31, 2001

Last week’s column about Dan Szymanski and his 1988 trip around the outer edge of Minnesota reminded me of several map games and challenges I once created.

Now I’m not advocating that folks get on their bicycles or in their vehicles to travel around the outer edge of the state. Instead, what I’m suggesting is a nice indoor study of our official state map. That’s the one, incidentally, which has the word official on the cover and supposed to be free. All that’s needed is a good imagination, maybe a marker or highlighter pen, and some careful concentration.

This trip around the inside edge or circumference of Minnesota could start anywhere close to the state’s outer edge. In fact, Albert Lea is as very logical place to begin this trip on the map.

The intention is to use the map to lay out a route around the edge of the state and as close to the adjoining state or province as possible. One can make this trip by using a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Let’s use clockwise and make this imaginary trip on paved and numbered roadways only. To determine if a road is paved, use the explanation or legend part of the map.

Now, let’s start off this project with just a portion of the routing. From Albert Lea go south on U.S. Highway 69 to County Road 17 through Conger to County Road 4, then south to the Mansfield turnoff and west on County Road 11. This roadway becomes Faribault County Road 28. At the junction with State Highway 22 catch a right to Kiester, then make the route on County Road 2 through Bricelyn to U.S. Highway 169 north of Elmore. A short jog south on this highway, as indicated on the map, will result in a routing west again on County Road 2 to a place shown as Pilot Grove and the Martin County line.

As this tracing or marking on the map evolves, a somewhat zig and zag pattern should become apparent.

About the only place where one is really a long distance from the state line is in the northeast portion (the Arrowhead region). From Ely, State Highway 1 goes to Finland. Then Lake County Road 6 is the route of choice to Little Marias, where contact is made with State Highway 61 and the routing to the south and eventually back to Albert Lea.

Following these same rules, and starting in Northwood, the same challenge can be accomplished on the official state map of Iowa. Again, there are some zigs and zags on the marked paved roadways. Yet, the four corner communities in Iowa – New Albion, Keokuk, Hamburg and Larchwood – will be included in the routing.

For Wisconsin, let’s use the northwest corner city of Superior as the starting and ending place for the fantasy trip around the edge of this state. The only real challenges for this state are along the Michigan state line and on the Door Peninsula.

North Dakota prevents a real challenge with the tracing of a route around the inside circumference of the state. Starting at the northwestern corner community of Crosby, the routing on paved and marked roadways goes fairly well on a clockwise route to Strasburg and the Missouri River area. From here to the Montana line and north back to Crosby there aren’t too many roadways very close to the state line.

Starting at the northwest corner of South Dakota near the town of Buffalo, the route is a combination of being fairly close and rather far away form the state line. According to the official state map, the lack of numbers on some paved roadways in the Black Hills region presents a real routing challenge.

We have a fairly recent news event worthy of commentary as the topic for the next column. However, we do have two more map challenges based on the national atlas which will be featured in two future columns.

Feature writer Ed Shannon’s column appears Fridays in the Tribune.