Beaver Island, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Beaver Island, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Beaver Island, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Beaver Island, Michigan 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical Chart

$ 168.00
16 x 20 in
Baltic birch, hand-stained water
Up to nine laser-cut birch layers
Carved bathymetric relief, laser-etched labels
Soundings: NOAA nautical survey data
How the Water Becomes Wood

A chart is a stack of flat sheets until the water's real soundings tell it what shape to take.

  1. SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
  2. CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
  3. StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
  4. StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
  5. EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
  6. FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.

Beaver Island, the largest island in Lake Michigan, carved in Baltic birch at 16 by 20 inches with the harbor, the shoals, and the open water around it cut layer by layer.

They call it America's Emerald Isle for the Irish fishing families who settled it, but the strangest chapter came first: in the 1850s the island was the domain of James Strang, who had himself crowned king of his breakaway sect, the only crowned king in American history. Today the island belongs to the ferry from Charlevoix, the sheltered curve of Paradise Bay, and the village of St. James wrapped around its harbor. On the chart, that harbor reads as a calm pocket of upper layers with the deep open lake stacking away on every side, thirty-some miles from the mainland.

Contours are laser-cut sheet by sheet and stacked by hand, names engraved into the wood, acrylic glass over the face, solid Baltic birch frame.

Islanders and summer people alike know the moment the boat rounds the point into Paradise Bay. That turn is right here in the birch.

St. James and Paradise Bay anchor the north end, with the outer islands of the archipelago scattered nearby. The ferry runs from Charlevoix, and the big water all around is the Lake Michigan chart.

  • 16 × 20 in
  • Solid Baltic birch frame
  • Acrylic glass front, ready to hang
  • Free next-business-day shipping on orders placed by 2 PM EST
  • 14-day returns
View details