Where the lines come from
State fisheries crews survey inland lakes by sounding their depths and drawing contour lines: rings of equal depth from the shoreline down to the deepest hole. In Michigan these surveys are published by the Department of Natural Resources as digital contour maps.
How each design is drawn
We take a lake’s shoreline and depth contours from that survey, simplify them into clean lines, shade them from pale shallows to deep blue, and set the lake’s name, county and maximum depth beneath.
How your gift is made
The finished design goes to CafePress and Zazzle, which print it on the product you choose when you order and ship it to you.
Not for navigation
These are artworks for gifts. Lake bottoms change and surveys age, so never use them to navigate or to judge water depth.