RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Minnesota >> Pennington County >> Saint Hilaire >> Tidbits & TriviaIndex...

Outdoor Activities ...

As we travel, we like to pursue some of our interests (such as astronomy and bird watching).

When in Saint Hilaire, we use the following websites to find information relevant to Saint Hilaire and the surrounding area.

  • Weather ...
  • Astronomy & Satellites ...
    • Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
    • To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above, we pass this GPS location for Saint Hilaire:
    • 48.013518, -96.213793
    • Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
    • Open the Heavens-Above website centered on Saint Hilaire
  • Bird Watching ...
    • We enjoy finding new spots for bird watching and we use the eBird website for local sighting reports and to help identify hotspots.
    • The eBird website is organized on a county-by-county basis. We have selected Pennington County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Pennington County
    • Since Saint Hilaire is near Red Lake County and also Marshall County, we have provided a link to their eBird sighting reports:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Red Lake County
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Marshall County
  • Waymarking ...
    • Looking for somewhere out of the ordinary? Find a unique place and want to share it with others? Then it's time to visit Waymarking.com:
    • Open the Waymark.com report for Saint Hilaire

Communities Also Named Saint Hilaire ...

We found three communities that are also named Saint Hilaire.

There is one other community in Minnesota that is also named Saint Hilaire.

Beyond Minnesota, we know of two communities that are located in the United States and Canada. Of these two communities, one is located in the United States and the other four communities are located in Canada.

  • Communities Located In Minnesota ...
    • Polk County
      • We found mention of this community, but have little information.<1> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Minnesota community of Saint Hilaire [Polk County].
  • Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
    • New Brunswick
      • This Saint Hilaire lies 1,286 miles [2,069.6 km]<2> to the east of the Saint Hilaire that is located in Pennington County.
    • Quebec
      • We found mention of this community, but have little information.<1> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Quebec community of Saint Hilaire.

Curious and Interesting Names Near Saint Hilaire ...

As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.

  • Carpenters Corner
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Carpenters Corner is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carpenters Corner
  • Challenger Court
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Challenger Court is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Challenger Court
  • Dakota Junction
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Dakota Junction is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dakota Junction
  • Dorothy
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Dorothy is located in Red Lake County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dorothy
  • Hazel
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Hazel is located in Pennington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hazel
  • Red Lake Falls
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Rosewood
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Rosewood is located in Marshall County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosewood
  • Thief River Falls
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)

How Far From Saint Hilaire to ...

We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers & Almanacs that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a city such as Saint Hilaire to various places of note, such as the White House.

With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance beginning in Saint Hilaire and extending to:

  • Thief River Falls, which is the Seat of Pennington County, lies just to the North Northeast.
  • Saint Paul, which is the State Capital of Minnesota, lies 258 miles [415.2 km]<2> to the southeast (SE). If you could drive a straight line from Saint Hilaire to Saint Paul, with an average speed<4>of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, it would take four to five hours to make the trip. A comfortable walk of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour would take 15 days. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take 10 days.
  • The White House (Washington, DC) is 1,144 miles [1,841.1 km] to the east southeast (ESE). Driving would take over two days, a buggy would take 45 days and walking would take 65 days.
  • The shortest distance<5> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 6,155 miles [9,905.5 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<6>
  • The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 6,917 miles [11,131.8 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<7>
  • The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 4,854 miles [7,811.8 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<8>'

Footnotes ...

<1>If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Bird Creek to see Pete ... Bird Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that Saint Hilaire could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
<2>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Saint Hilaire) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<5>The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from Saint Hilaire to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Saint Hilaire. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 48.0135, Longitude: -96.2138       In this case, the coordinates for Saint Hilaire have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<6>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 320.413 degrees.
<7>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 318.964 degrees.
<8>The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 311.50 degrees.