Motorists taking State Route 16 through Licking County, Ohio, could be forgiven for thinking they’ve been at the wheel too long when they spot a giant shopping basket looming over the horizon.

This is no highway-induced hallucination however: it’s the headquarters of the Longaberger Company, famous for its handmade wooden baskets. Its founder, Dave Longaberger, was a man with a dream — and that dream included going to work in a seven-storey basket. When lesser men than Dave told him it couldn’t be done, he said: “If they can send a man to the moon and bring him back home, they can build a building shaped like a basket.” And he was right.

The building cost $300 million $30 million and took more than two years to build; it was completed in December 1997¹. The statistics are impressive: it takes the form of a 160:1 scale model of Longaberger’s top-selling Medium Market Basket, more than 60 m long and 30 m tall. The frame is made of steel, with a stucco finish cunningly designed to create a basket-weave effect (which also seems to confuse Street View’s face-blurring technology!) The handles are 100 metres long and weigh 75 tons each, and are even heated to prevent ice building up in winter and falling through the glass roof. (They also create a neat shadow.) On the side of the building, replicating the brass logos on the normal-sized baskets, are giant name plates weighing 340kg each and covered in gold leaf.

That’s not the only big basket in these parts, however. Over in nearby Dresden², where the Longaberger company was founded, there’s a 14-metre long picnic basket, made of real maple wood. Sadly, the imagery here is not high-enough resolution to see it in all its glory (I think this is it), but you can see pictures here. And at the Longaberger Homestead, a kitsch olde-worlde village/outlet store in Frazeysburg, there’s a giant apple basket. Again, the imagery isn’t very good here, so be sure to check out these ground-level photos (complete with giant apples!)

Read more about the creation of the Longaberger HQ at Elevator World, or visit the company website.

New writer: Randy Nickum Randy is a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the Midwest U.S. He has travelled widely across his country as a consultant and has visited six of seven continents, missing only Australia so far.

An exclave is defined as “a territory whose geographical boundaries lie entirely within the boundaries of another territory.” Practically speaking, it is a portion of one territory that cannot be reached by land without first passing through another.

There are several examples of exclaves in the United States. One of the best known (and previously documented on GSS) is Point Roberts, Washington, an area of the state that can only be reached by first travelling through British Columbia, Canada.

The exclave of Point Roberts was created by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, which set the boundary between the United States and British North America at the 49th parallel north — with one exception. Due to various mapping mistakes and confusion over the location of the headwaters of the Mississippi River, the U.S.-Canada border juts northward to include a chunk of land lying north of the 49th parallel. This area, now part of the state of Minnesota, is known as the Northwest Angle.

The Angle (as it’s known by locals) can only be reached via a single gravel road through Manitoba, and visitors clear Customs in both directions via videophone in a small unmanned hut. The total population of the remote, 300 square km (116 square mile) township is 152, and it boasts the only remaining one-room school house in the state.

Just below the 49th parallel, and also cut off from the mainland of the U.S., is Elm Point, Minnesota. Elm Point is remote, uninhabited and roadless, yet satellite imagery appears to show a line cut through the forest at the U.S.-Canada border, presumably for clear sight lines along the border. Who would see any illegal activity along those sight lines is an unanswered question.

Alburgh, Vermont is a pene-exclave of the United States. Now before our dear readers crash the GSS servers thinking a pene-exclave is some sort of French rudeness, a bit of definition: a pene-exclave is an exclave for practical purposes, without meeting the strict definition of an exclave. In the case of Alburgh, the town lies on a peninsula connected to Canada (like Point Roberts and the Northwest Angle) but is linked to the rest of Vermont and neighbouring New York via bridges. These bridges serve as the only road route across Lake Champlain.

Among state borders within the U.S., many exclaves have been created over time by the meandering of flooded rivers. In these cases, legal boundaries remain in force, even though river courses render some areas cut off from the rest of their respective states. Among the most prominent examples are the Kentucky Bend and Carter Lake, Iowa.

The Kentucky Bend is an area of Kentucky that is completely surrounded by the states of Missouri and Tennessee. The Mississippi River passes over a geological fault in this area, and The Bend was formed by a shift in the course of the Mississippi River after an earthquake in 1812. A later surveying mistake (again with surveying mistakes?) while setting the Kentucky-Tennessee border created the division. The 44 square km (17 square mile) area is home to just 17 people. No bridges connect The Bend with the rest of Kentucky, and if you wish to send mail to someone in The Bend, his official postal address is (confusingly) in Tiptonville, Tennessee.

Finally, Carter Lake, Iowa is the only city in Iowa that lies west of the Missouri River. It is completely surrounded by Omaha, Nebraska, and was formed by a flood that straightened the course of the river in 1877. After a set of legal disputes Carter Lake was determined to be part of Iowa, and later became a recreational hot spot, offering casino gambling even though the rest of surrounding Nebraska outlaws it. The town’s utility services come from Nebraska, while children attend school across the Missouri River in Iowa. Travellers in Omaha driving to the city’s airport pass through Carter Lake¹, where signs reading “Welcome to Iowa” confuse many panicked out-of-state visitors.

You can read more about the Northwest Angle, Elm Point, Alburgh, the Kentucky Bend, and Carter Lake (along with a huge worldwide list of exclaves and enclaves) at Wikipedia.

Thanks to last week’s launch of Google Street View in Canada, our Canadian correspondent Ian has been able to prepare a grand tour of Canada’s Railway Hotels, in 2 parts.

Continuing our journey from east to west, looking at Canada’s grand railway hotels, we start in Toronto and the Royal York Hotel.

The largest Fairmount hotel in Canada, the Royal York is directly across the street from Union Station, still the departure point for trains which head across the country to Vancouver¹.

When it opened in 1929 the hotel was the tallest building in the British Empire, and it is typically where members of the Royal Family stay when visiting the city.

Hopping across the still-lacking-in-Street-View-imagery provinces, we head to Alberta and the Palliser Hotel in Calgary, located right next to the Calgary Tower.

Opened by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1914, the Palliser is now home to the CPR Pavilion, an exhibition showing the historical links between hotel and railway, including some vintage train cars². Once the tallest building in the city, the hotel is now dwarfed by skyscrapers that have sprung up in this oil-rich city.

Following the Street View car west we get to the Rocky Mountains, and two hotels that can perhaps be considered the grandest of the grand hotels. CPR President William Van Horne declared “If we can’t export the scenery, we’ll import the tourists”, and those tourists still flock to these hotels in huge numbers every year.

The Banff Springs Hotel opened in 1888 and was rebuilt 40 years later after a fire, though it took another 40 years after that for it to be made suitable for winter use.

The Banff Springs takes its name from the natural hot springs which rise in another part of the town – the hotel’s current spa is only ‘reminiscent’ of the natural springs!

Named a National Historic Site in 1992 (and located in the UNESCO World Heritage Banff National Park), the hotel is now a major ‘resort’ with a world-renowned golf course, huge conference centre, on-site staff housing and multiple accommodation wings for guests.

About 60km to the north-west is Chateau Lake Louise, which has also developed into resort status.

At the edge of a stunning glacier-blue lake, surrounded by soaring mountain peaks – this has to be one of the most scenic hotel locations in the world³, though it is amusing to see trail-ragged hikers wandering through the opulent surroundings after a long day’s walk. And despite its size, this hotel did not open year-round until the 1970s. Winter activities now include skiing and skating on the lake, as well as horse-drawn sleigh rides.

Finally to Vancouver, end (or beginning, depending on your direction of travel) of the cross-country train journey, and the Hotel Vancouver.

A joint construction by Canadian Pacific and Canadian National, the hotel is a short distance from the current VIA Rail station. It opened in 1939 with a visit from the King and Queen.

Similar to the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, the Hotel Vancouver housed the local CBC studios for a number of years.

We hope to conclude this series with the hotels in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Victoria – when Street View makes it to those cities.

Thanks to this week’s launch of Google Street View in Canada, our Canadian correspondent Ian has been able to prepare a grand tour of Canada’s Railway Hotels, in 2 parts.

It is often said that Canada was built on the railroad, with expansion of the train tracks from east to west ensuring that the population – particularly new immigrants – spread across the country. A network of grand railway hotels was created to encourage wealthy tourists to take the train. With the arrival of Google Street View in Canada, we’ll take a look at these hotels, starting with Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City.

Opened in 1893, the hotel’s history is apparent the moment you step into the ornate wood-panelled lobby, while the exterior is typical of the style of hotels built by the Canadian Pacific Company, with soaring turrets and towers.

Its position atop a rock outcropping gives stunning views across the St Lawrence river from many of the rooms and makes it the dominating feature of the city’s skyline – see the view from the Old Town about 60m below.

The Chateau is now owned by the Fairmount hotel chain, as are most of the other grand hotels, including the Queen Elizabeth in Montreal.

The last railway hotel to be constructed (in 1958) before air travel became the preferred form of mass transit, it has a rather more modern architectural style. It is located directly above Montreal’s Central Station and is the largest hotel in Quebec with 1037 rooms.

This hotel is perhaps most famous as the location of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 Bed-In. They took up residence in room 1742 for a week, receiving the world’s media and many celebrities and other guests. The bed-in culminated with the recording of Give Peace a Chance.

The Queen Elizabeth was preceded in Montreal by two other – externally more elegant – hotels, both of which have now been converted for business or educational use: the Windsor Hotel and Place Viger. The Windsor Hotel was the first of the grand railway hotels, opening in 1878; it closed 103 years later. Place Viger opened 20 years later but closed in the economic depression of the 1930s.

In Ottawa the Chateau Laurier stands beside the Rideau Canal, just a few meters from Parliament Hill.

Originally located across the street from the train station¹, the hotel was commissioned by Charles Hays, chairman of the Grand Trunk Railway. Unfortunately Hays chose a ship called the Titanic to make the journey to the hotel’s opening celebration, which was subsequently delayed by a couple of months. Hays may have made the journey anyway, as a number of guests have reported seeing his ghost wandering the hallways!

Being in the nation’s capital, the hotel routinely plays host to visiting heads of state and other dignitaries. For 80 years it was also the home of the local CBC studios, while portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh had a studio and apartment in the hotel.

We’ll cover the rest of the country in part two of this post.

Thanks to Denis Gravel, Stephen Salomons and Dave.

Google have just expanded Street View’s coverage to 14 countries with the addition of 11 Canadian cities and regions¹, and the Czech city of Prague.

We’ve already found some great Street View sights, which you can see on our brand-new Street View page or even better, follow us on Twitter to get the latest sights the moment we find them.

Montreal’s Olympic stadium was one of the very first sights we posted to Google Sightseeing, when the site was just 3 days old. Now 4 and half years later, we get a much better view of the bizarre building and the world’s tallest inclined structure.

Outside the stunning Canadian Parliament building we can see Tamil protestors, calling for action on the Sri Lankan Civil War. They protested non-stop throughout most of April 2009.

Probably Canada’s most recognisable landmark, the CN Tower in Toronto can be spotted from miles around. This unique view, complete with truck about to crash into the tower, comes from the CTV’s television station.

The impressive Czech National Museum sits atop Prague’s Wenceslas Square. The facade had to undergo major repairs following severe gunfire damage during the 1968 Warsaw Pact intervention.

Have you found anything cool on the new Street View? Send us a tweet so we can tell the world!