FW: Time zone in Atikokan, Ontario, Canada

---------- From: msb@sq.com[SMTP:msb@sq.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 1997 2:09 AM To: ado@elsie.nci.nih.gov Cc: eggert@twinsun.com Subject: Time zone in Atikokan, Ontario, Canada If I look at my road atlases, I see a nice straight-line boundary between Eastern and Central Time in Ontario, following the 90th west meridian from the boundary with Manitoba to that with Minnesota. Atikokan is located about 80 miles west of the 90th meridian and about 120 miles west of Thunder Bay. Article in the Toronto Star, 1997-10-14: | Atikokan asked to vote on daylight savings time | | ATIKOKAN (CP) -- Voters here are being asked to decide | what time it should be. | | Like Saskatchewan, this northwestern Ontario community | of 4,000 does not change to daylight savings time. | | That means clocks are an hour behind the rest of the | province in the summer months. | | The chamber of commerce wants the town on eastern time | year-round because it says most of the community's | business dealings are with clients in that region. | | The question will be on the ballot in the Nov. 10 | municipal election. Presumably this means that (1) either the Canadian Press or the Toronto Star is unaware that not all of Ontario observes Eastern Time, and (2) Atikokan has been been observing UTC-5 = Eastern Standard Time = Central Daylight Time all year, and now proposes to move to Eastern Time. I thought the tz mailing list might be interested, if they hadn't already heard. I'm afraid I have no idea which level of government has official jurisdiction on the question here.

Thanks for forwarding the info about Atikokan. Shanks (1995) claims that Atikokan's clocks have agreed with those of America/Rainy_River ever since the introduction of standard time in 1895, i.e. that it used daylight-saving time during the summer of 1918, from 1940 through 1945, and during summers from 1974 on. Given the Toronto Star's report that Atikokan does not use DST, and given Atikokan's longitude of 91W37 (-06:06:28) it would make sense for it to be on Central Standard Time all year; this would also agree with your road atlas maps. So perhaps the simplest correction to Shanks is that Atikokan, like Saskatchewan, has observed CST with no DST since World War II. I've written the Atikokan library for more info.
participants (2)
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Olson, Arthur David
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Paul Eggert