Lake Erie 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.
Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and the liveliest for it, and this long 13.5 by 31 inch chart lays the whole lake out, Toledo to Buffalo, one laser-cut birch layer per depth contour.
The average depth here is only 62 feet, which is exactly why Erie warms first, fishes best, and kicks up faster than any of its siblings. It is often said to put more fish on the table than the other four lakes combined, and the walleye run out of its western basin is the stuff of charter-boat legend. On the chart, the shallow western basin around the islands sits high in the birch while the deeper eastern basin toward Buffalo steps down layer by layer, the whole tilt of the lake visible at a glance.
Contours are cut sheet by sheet and stacked by hand, names engraved into the wood, the relief protected behind acrylic glass. The solid birch frame comes in Dark or Light.
Walleye anglers, islanders, and anyone raised along the south shore will find their water in the top two layers.
Engraved across it are Cleveland, Toledo, Sandusky, and Erie on the American side, Point Pelee reaching down from Ontario, and the island cluster around Put-in-Bay. Upstream, the water arrives from Lake St. Clair, and the whole system is on the full Great Lakes chart.
- 13.5 × 31 in, a long format for a long lake
- 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