M-22, 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.
M-22 is the drive, and this is the chart of it: the shoreline route from Manistee around the Leelanau Peninsula, with the waters it passes cut in layered Baltic birch, harbor by harbor, lake by lake.
The highway runs 116 miles and never strays far from water: past Portage Lake and Point Betsie's lighthouse, along Crystal Lake, through the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore at Glen Arbor, past Leland's Fishtown, around the tip at Northport, and down the bay shore through Suttons Bay toward Traverse City. The green-and-white M-22 shield became shorthand for this whole coast for a reason. On the chart, the route's waters appear the way they do from the road, one after another, each with its own basin of birch: Big Glen's deep bowl, Crystal's long trough, the open lake always to the west.
Every contour is laser-cut and stacked by hand, names engraved into the wood, acrylic glass over the relief, solid Baltic birch frame.
People do not just drive M-22, they keep score of it: which stretch, which stand, which beach. This chart is the whole scorecard.
Along the way sit Frankfort, Empire, Glen Arbor, Leland, Northport, and Suttons Bay. The headline waters each have their own chart: Glen Lake, Crystal Lake, Lake Leelanau, and Grand Traverse Bay.
- 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
Live from the water