45th Parallel Gift Shop - Perry, Maine
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 44° 59.818 W 067° 05.227
19T E 650772 N 4984393
When we visited the 45th Parallel Gift Shop is was still closed for the winter months. However, you can drive by, take pictures of the gift shop, and the two globes marking the not so real 45th parallel, though interesting.
Waymark Code: WMPQEN
Location: Maine, United States
Date Posted: 10/07/2015
Views: 3
Written on the sign in front of the globe is inscribed:
You Are Halfway Between the
Equator and the North Pole
Perry, Maine
Most people are probably unaware that the 45th parallel is not midway between the north pole and the equator. This is the result of the earth's being oblate, or bulged at the equator and flattened at the poles. This is caused by the centrifugal force of the earth's spin.
Though this explanation is correct, it is not near as interesting.
The text from the Roadside America website:
Opened in 1994, the 45th Parallel is a gift shop just south of the actual 45th parallel, which crosses US 1 just up the road. Owner Phil Pascorelli told us that map-fan travelers often stop to take photos of the store's globe monument signs, believing that they mark the cartographic line. The confusion is understandable because the actual monument -- the oldest of many 45th parallel markers in the U.S. -- is small, unexciting, and easy to miss.
Phil sells 45th Parallel t-shirts, sweatshirts, post cards, and stickers -- but his cartographic booty only comprises a small fraction of his stock, which includes everything from home furnishings to a genuine stuffed lion. "I just try to make it interesting for everybody," said Joe, adding that the ability to plot the 45th parallel in the 1890s -- when the monument was erected -- still impresses him.
Although the 45th Parallel is the only line-of-latitude-themed store that Phil was aware of, he said that there was a 45th parallel restaurant on Deer Island, just a few miles east, across the border in Canada.
This globe was built and erected as a 45th parallel marker by a gift shop along Highway 1. It's beginning to show a bit of age, but still serves the purpose quite well. Land masses, including larger islands, are not simply painted on, but are pieces of sheet metal cut to shape and affixed to the globe.
Neither marker is, apparently, exactly on the 45th parallel. This one, for example, is about 520 feet south of the actual 45th. This was probably done for convenience.
