Lake St. Clair, Michigan 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth 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.
Locals call it the sixth Great Lake, and it earns the title by workload: nearly all the water of the upper lakes funnels through Lake St. Clair on its way from Huron to Erie. This 24.5 by 31 inch chart cuts the whole heart-shaped lake into layered Baltic birch.
St. Clair averages just 11 feet deep, which produces one of its oddest features: the shipping channel dredged to 27 feet runs across the lake like a canyon through a plain, and on the chart it reads exactly that way, a deep engraved cut through otherwise shallow top layers. To the north, the St. Clair River fans out into the largest freshwater delta in the Great Lakes system before spilling into Anchor Bay. Shallow, warm, and weedy, this lake is also one of the best muskie fisheries on the continent.
Every contour is a separate laser-cut sheet, stacked so the channel, the delta, and the flats all hold their true shape, with names engraved into the wood behind acrylic glass. The solid birch frame comes in Dark or Light.
Boaters who raft off at Muscamoot, sailors out of the Grosse Pointe clubs, anglers working the mile roads: this is your water.
The engraving spans Anchor Bay and the St. Clair Flats, the Grosse Pointes along the southwest shore, and the river mouths at both ends. Downstream the water reaches Lake Erie; upstream it comes from Lake Huron.
- 24.5 × 31 in
- Solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light
- 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