Green Lake, Wisconsin 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Green Lake, Wisconsin 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Green Lake, Wisconsin 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Green Lake, Wisconsin 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart

$ 194.00
16 × 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.

Green Lake, the deepest natural inland lake in Wisconsin, carved in stacked Baltic birch with every depth contour cut as its own layer, so the lake's great basin shows the way a chartmaker sees it.

Big Green, as locals call it, drops to about 237 feet, deep enough that the water stays cold and clear through summers that cook everything around it. The lake has drawn visitors since the 1860s, when resort hotels began ringing its shores, making it one of the oldest resort communities in the Midwest. Lake trout hold in that deep, cold basin, a fishery most inland lakes this far south simply cannot support. On the chart, the depth is the drama: the layers keep stepping down toward the bottom of the stack, a plunge you can trace with a thumb from the swimming rafts to the deepest engraving.

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

Cottage owners here talk about the deep hole the way mountain towns talk about their peak. Now it hangs on the wall.

The city of Green Lake anchors the northeast shore, with Sunset Park and the county's quiet farm country all around. Wisconsin's other great waters are nearby: Lake Winnebago to the east and Mendota and Monona to the southwest.

  • 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
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