Minnesota Point starts at the base -- the railroad is a good spot to mark the start. Park Point is a community on Minnesota Point starting south of the Canal, originally called Middleton, and did not go the length of the point, as Ojibwe traditionally spent summers there. Canal Park "proper" is actually the two strips of land on either side of the canal, owned by the Feds. (The aerial bridge is technically a city-owned structure on Federal property). The rest of the land north of the Canal, which we all call Canal Park, is now technically the Canal Park Business District, and is considered part of downtown. It was for a long time made up of two major plats: Cowell's Addition and Industrial Addition, which for some time included (on the "beach" side) "No Man's Land," later referred to as "Finn Town" (an area later used for public dumping of cars and major appliances). Much of the land was originally (as far as European settlement goes) owned by Sidney Luce and J. B. Culver (our first two mayors).

And if you want to get real technical, once the Ispheming finished cutting the canal (Saturday, April 29, 1871, all by itself with very little hand digging), the southern half of Minnesota Point has been an island.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure if the definition of "spit" is appropriate for MN & WI Points, since the way I read it, it seems to imply only coastal residue involving longshore drift causes spits. Our points are formed from two phenomena: The St. Louis and Nemadji (or Left Handed) Rivers depositing silt at the head of the lake and the natural clockwise rotation of Lake Superior carrying silt from the South Shore and tucking it into the corner of the lake; they meet at one spot, and the silt builds on either side to form the sand bar. (Maybe that is the definition of spit and I read it wrong?) The Superior Outlet, which separates the two, was where the Nemadji emptied, and the opening naturally "relocated" north and south for a long while (MN Point Light was originally very close to the entry and is now 1/4- to 1/2-mile away -- and the building didn't go anywhere). Dredging and harbor improvements in the 1890s included the concrete piers and made it stable. 

Boy, someone should write all this down in a book!