Proposals and War Aims That Didn't Happen Map Thread
- Thread starter Beedok
- Start date
Pushing the edge of the upload limit - The Venezuela-British Guiana Boundary Commission investigated the numerous claimed border lines, before the Panel of Arbitration went with a slightly different version of the Schomburgk Line that was not added on the map.
Full zoomable version
That’s just the map for the Louisiana Purchase, long before anything further west was settled to any large extent. Switch over to the Mexican-American War map. Sam Houston’s proposal is the rightful border. Damn Trist.
Thank you so much for posting this link. That site is such a great resource.
I suspect their thinking was something along the lines of "that's for the next war".
Somebody starts a war somewhere in Europe over something and in the end Poland ends up having its borders completely changed.
Also how they intended to take Galicia from the Austrians... the internal boundaries in this proposal are an interesting mix of the current (for the time) mid-1860's admin divisions and the old historical Commonwealth lines...
Not sure why they didn't just leave the pre-1905 district boundaries of the NWT in place, and bring in Alberta, Saskatchewan AND Assiniboia as provinces in 1905; this looks sensible to me (maybe any Canucks among us could explain to me why it wasn't):
Ah yes, the "let's just use a ruler, screw the facts on the ground" method.
In general, I haaaate borders drawn on a purely geometric basis, unless there are really no other clear alternatives...
Proposal 5 would be the closest to what you're saying. Then in 1912, Manitoba gets its OTL borders and Athabasca expands east to fill the gap.
That is correct, except for that weirdness west of The Pas where they inexplicably transfer that away from Saskatchewan District...
I'd make a couple other minor adjustments... I like the idea of the Kootenay basin going to Alberta (don't know why, maybe to line up with the time zones?
) , dividing the Peace River district between Alberta and Athabasca, and xferring everything north of there and east of the crest of the Rockies to Athabasca (sorry BC!) 
I feel that it partially may have come down to the railroads and, more importantly, distributing the less populated northern areas to those who can exploit the land. And, looking it up, so the Métis and First Nations could be kept out of the way while Ottawa worked to bring in millions of immigrants (explicitly white, trying to keep any others out) with which to settle the land and bring in loads of cash. And to then send everything directly to be exported by Ontario, Quebec, etc as free trade and lower tariffs with the US was treated like treason for a while. I do remember once seeing a map on an old Map Thread about a Manifest Destiny involving going Pole to Pole. All the Canadian Praire Provinces have their borders going up, slicing through Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
It partially works in real life. Straight lines going north, and keeping along a long from Alaska to the Hudson Bay. The biggest issues are when straight lines are put between already highly populated areas. Plus sometimes t is best to not use the obvious geographic features as the border. I can only imagine how New Mexico would work if the Rio Grande was used as a border between states. Dante are would be in some economic trouble. Maybe not the best example.