Muskegon to South Haven, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Muskegon to South Haven, Michigan 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Muskegon to South Haven, Michigan 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart

$ 298.00
13.5 x 43 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.

Sixty miles of Michigan's west coast in one long chart. At 13.5 by 43 inches, this is the largest format in the lineup, and it uses every inch: the Lake Michigan shore from Muskegon to South Haven, with each harbor town and its inland lake cut in layered Baltic birch.

This stretch of coast repeats a pattern found almost nowhere else: drowned river mouths, where each river widens into its own lake behind the dunes before slipping out to the big water. Muskegon Lake, Spring Lake and the Grand River at Grand Haven, Lake Macatawa at Holland, the Kalamazoo River at Saugatuck, the Black River at South Haven. Each harbor keeps its landmark light, from Grand Haven's red lighthouse and catwalk to Holland's Big Red, and on the chart every one of those inland lakes appears as its own small basin of birch tucked behind the shoreline sheet, beads on a sixty-mile string.

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

Pick your pier: Grand Haven on a big-wave day, Saugatuck at golden hour, South Haven with ice cream. Whichever one is yours, it anchors this chart.

The engraving runs through Muskegon, Grand Haven, Holland, Saugatuck and Douglas, and South Haven, with Mona Lake and Port Sheldon between. The dunes continue north on the Silver Lake chart, and the whole big lake is the Lake Michigan chart.

  • 13.5 × 43 in, the longest chart we cut
  • 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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