Mackinac Island, Michigan 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical 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.
Mackinac Island and the Straits around it, carved in stacked Baltic birch. The island, the passage between two Great Lakes, and the water every ferry crosses, cut one depth contour per layer.
No cars have run on Mackinac Island since 1898, which is most of what you need to know about the place: horses, bicycles, the long porch of the Grand Hotel, and fudge shops on Main Street. The island sits in the Straits of Mackinac, the channel where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron join and trade water back and forth, and the chart shows what the ferry captains know: the shoals off the island, the deep water of the passage, Round Island and its lighthouse standing guard across the channel.
Every contour is laser-cut from its own birch sheet and stacked by hand, place names engraved rather than printed, acrylic glass over the relief, solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light.
Honeymooners, Fort Mackinac kids, lilac festival regulars: whatever brought you across the Straits, the crossing itself is here in the wood.
The engraving covers the island, Round Island and its light, and the Straits shores at Mackinaw City and St. Ignace. The bridge's water continues on the Lake Huron chart and the Lake Michigan chart, or take all five at once on the Great Lakes chart.
- 16 × 20 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