San Juan Islands, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
San Juan Islands, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
San Juan Islands, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
San Juan Islands, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
San Juan Islands, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
San Juan Islands, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
San Juan Islands, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

San Juan Islands, Washington 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical Chart

$ 328.00
Size
Frame
24.5 x 31 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.

The San Juan Islands in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: the archipelago carved one depth contour per layer, channels, passes, and all the islands the ferries weave between.

The San Juans count their islands in the hundreds at low tide, and their history in oddities: the Pig War of 1859 nearly brought Britain and America to blows here over one shot pig, settled instead by a decade of polite joint occupation. Today the islands run on ferry schedules and orca sightings; Lime Kiln Point on San Juan's west side is ranked among the best places on earth to watch whales from shore, the resident pods working the Haro Strait current just off the rocks. On the chart, the deep channels between islands, San Juan, Rosario, Haro, cut engraved lanes through a birch field of summits-turned-islands.

Each contour is a separate laser-cut sheet, stacked by hand and engraved, behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light.

Islanders navigate by ferry line loyalty and favorite anchorages. Both are chartable, and charted.

The engraving spans Friday Harbor and Roche Harbor, Orcas and its sound, Lopez, Shaw, and the passes between. The wider water runs on the Salish Sea chart.

  • 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
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