The Metric Conversion Monument

"PERCH LAKE 3 MI," reads the face that greets southbound traffic on the provincial road below Osier Plain; the northbound face puts the same trip at 4.9 km. The discrepancy — a rounding error of roughly one hundred metres, introduced when the second face was painted during the metrication push of 1977 — has outlived the store the distances were measured to, and in 1994 the rural municipality voted seven to two to leave both faces as painted. An interpretive post added after the vote explains the arithmetic without taking a side. Which face is wrong turns out to depend on where at Perch Lake one stops measuring, a question the municipality has formally declined to settle. The minutes of the 1994 meeting are said to survive in a binder at the municipal office, which is open when the administrator is in.