Epoxy

Buck Lake

South Frontenac, Ontario, Canada

Also known as South Frontenac, Battersea, Frontenac Arch, Cataraqui watershed

The rock under this lake is a bridge, and species have been walking across it for thousands of years.

The Frontenac Arch is a belt of Precambrian granite that runs from the Canadian Shield down through here, crosses the St. Lawrence as the Thousand Islands, and carries on into the Adirondacks. It separates the St. Lawrence Lowlands from the Great Lakes Lowlands. First Nations call it the backbone of the mother. Five forest regions meet along it, which is why the biodiversity here is out of proportion to the latitude.

Buck Lake sits entirely within the Frontenac Arch Biosphere, a UNESCO site of more than 220,000 hectares designated in 2002. Some of the exposed rock around the shoreline has been dated at over a billion years.

The lake is two branches rather than one, joined near the middle, each with its own watershed. The south branch is the deeper of the two and holds lake trout. A dam at the north end of it sets the level.

Details

Feature: Lake
Build: Epoxy
Material: Solid Walnut
Colour: Caribbean Blue
Size: 10-1/2" x 16"
Completed: June 2025

Shop this Style $350.00 CAD

How this one was made

Walnut, inset, with the dam following the waterline about half an inch out.

Two long narrow branches running parallel on the diagonal, joined near the middle. Both are thin enough for most of their length that the dam lines on either side sit close together, and the southwest ends of both taper down to points a couple of millimetres across. There are islands through the middle section, each ringed completely.

A shape on the diagonal is worth noting on its own. It crosses the grain rather than running with it, which means the dam meets the wood at a changing angle the whole way down, and staining risk goes up wherever the pour sits across open grain rather than along it. Walnut is the right wood for that, being tighter and darker than maple.

Two colours, the water and the black. The black does the lettering, the compass rose and the pin. Both rose and pin are syringe fills.