Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical Chart

$ 288.00
Size
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.

Grand Traverse Bay in stacked Baltic birch: 32 miles of protected water split down the middle by Old Mission Peninsula, with every depth contour cut as its own layer.

The bay plunges to roughly 620 feet in its west arm, deeper than anywhere in Lake Erie and most of Lake Huron, remarkable for water this sheltered. Old Mission Peninsula divides it into two long arms, and the lighthouse at its tip stands almost exactly on the 45th parallel, halfway between the equator and the pole. On the chart, the two arms read as twin stacks of birch stepping down fast from the shorelines, with Power Island sitting in the west arm's top layers where the boats anchor on summer Saturdays.

Layers are laser-cut one contour at a time and stacked by hand, so the bay's famous depth is something you can see edge-on. Names are engraved, the finish shows the grain, and acrylic glass keeps the relief clean in its solid Baltic birch frame.

If you have ever watched the bay turn that impossible blue from a Traverse City beach or a Suttons Bay slip, this is that view, made permanent.

The engraving runs from Traverse City at the foot of the bay up through Suttons Bay and Northport on the Leelanau side and Elk Rapids on the east shore. Neighboring waters are close: Torch Lake just inland, Lake Leelanau over the hills, and the whole region on the Northwest Michigan chart.

  • 16 × 20 in or 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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