Burt & Mullet Lakes, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Burt & Mullet Lakes, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Burt & Mullet Lakes, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Burt & Mullet Lakes, Michigan 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart

$ 288.00
24.5 x 31 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.

Burt and Mullett Lakes together on one chart, carved in Baltic birch at 24.5 by 31 inches: two of Michigan's biggest inland lakes, the river that joins them, and the historic waterway they anchor.

These two giants form the heart of the Inland Waterway, the 40-mile chain that lets boats travel from Crooked Lake all the way to Cheboygan and out into Lake Huron without ever touching the big lake's weather. The Indian River connects Burt to Mullett in a lazy few miles, and Mullett holds the deeper basin of the pair, home to lake sturgeon that can outlive the people who fish for them. On the chart, both basins carry their own stacks of birch with the river a thin engraved thread between them, the whole route boats have run for more than a century.

Each contour is a laser-cut sheet, stacked by hand, names engraved into the wood, acrylic glass over the relief, solid Baltic birch frame.

Waterway families collect all four lakes of the route eventually. These are the two big ones, side by side the way they belong.

Indian River sits at the joint between the lakes, with Cheboygan at the waterway's Lake Huron end and Topinabee on Mullett's western shore. The route's saltier destinations are close by: the Mackinac Island chart and the open water of Lake Huron.

  • 24.5 × 31 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
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