Flathead Lake, Montana 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Topographic Chart
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.
- SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
- CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
- StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
- StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
- EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
- FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.
Flathead Lake in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: the largest natural freshwater lake in the western United States carved one depth contour per layer.
Flathead runs on a scale the mountains deserve: nearly thirty miles long, famously clear, and cold enough to keep its water honest, with the Mission and Salish ranges standing over opposite shores. Wild Horse Island rises mid-lake as a state park where bighorn sheep and the namesake horses roam ashore of the sailboats, and the east shore's cherry orchards ripen their short, celebrated crop each July, roadside stands appearing like a season of their own. Glacier's peaks wait just up the valley. On the chart, the lake's deep glacial basin and its islands hold their true shapes in birch, big western water rendered at full dignity.
Each contour is a separate laser-cut sheet, stacked by hand and engraved, behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame.
Cherry stands, sailboat masts, and mountain weather: Montana's inland sea, framed.
The engraving spans Polson to Somers, Wild Horse Island, Bigfork's bay, and the east shore orchards.
- 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
Live from the water