Comments on: The Far East (of America): Cape Spear

By: qka

qka — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:55:33 +0000

Miguel,

The Aleutian Islands west of the normal longitude of the International Dateline; however, the Dateline has a bit of a bend to the west, so that the Aleutians are kept with North America. North of there, the line has a bend to the east to keep the eastern most piece of Russia with the rest of Asia. To the south, there are other bends in the line to accommodate geopolitical issues.

http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/InternationalDateline.html is one source of a map of all the bends.

By: Ian Brown

Ian Brown — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:56:19 +0000

Miguel – I chose to ignore those questions when writing the post! Wikipedia describes them as a ‘controversy’ but as a proud Canadian I believe that Cape Spear is the true easternmost point of the continent!

By: Miguel Borges

Miguel Borges — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:19:14 +0000

I grew up in St. John’s, Newfoundland (and now live on the other side of Canada – Prince Rupert BC). Great place, and great people.

Some thoughts on “Most Easterly Point in North America”:

is Greenland part of North America?

How about one of those Alaskan Islands — would they be considered more easterly in a weird kind of way (ie: have a larger number of longitude?)

I took my wife to Cape Spear on our first date Along with Signal Hill, its a common make-out point for the locals.

By: padraig

padraig — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:23:40 +0000

Following-up. If you look slightly north you will see the ‘jaws’ of the inner harbour to St. John’s. The northern tip of the gap is Signal Hill. This was the site where Marconi recvd the first transatlantic radio transmission from Cornwall UK, in the very early 20th century. If you scan down the inner harbour note the large container pier on the south end. That was the site of the Y2K New Year’s party/concert. Fond memories indeed.

By: padraig

padraig — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:36:23 +0000

I had the pleasure of visiting Cape Spear on New Year’s Day 2000. Sight of the celebration of the first sunrise of the new millenium in the Americas. I didn’t quite make the sunrise event- perhaps due to the length of the huge party the night before in St. John’s where the time zone (1/2 hour before the rest of Atlantic Canada) allowed them to welcome the first New Year’s in the western hemisphere. A common Canadian inside joke is “It is now 3:30 – on the hour in Newfoundland”.