Epoxy
Lake Mendota
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Also known as Madison, Yahara Lakes, Four Lakes
Madison's ice cutters started writing down the day Lake Mendota froze in 1852, so they would know when their season was coming.
They have not stopped. The record now runs more than 170 years, one of the longest continuous ice records anywhere, and it started three years after the university did.
There is a rule for what counts. The lake is frozen when ice reaches from Picnic Point to Maple Bluff and covers more than half the surface, and holds for a full day. Some winters it freezes, thaws and freezes again.
What the record shows is about six weeks of ice gone since the 1850s. Freeze dates come later, thaw dates come earlier, and most of this century's freeze dates have fallen in January rather than December. The average since 1852 is December 20.
Details
- Feature
- Lake
- Build
- Epoxy
- Material
- Solid Walnut
- Colour
- Ocean Blue
- Size
- 10-1/2" x 16"
- Completed
- March 2025
How this one was made
Not wall to wall, so the dam runs about half an inch outside the waterline and the flood follows the shore. Mendota itself is generous, a big open basin with a smooth edge, so the pour goes in easily across most of it. The work is at the top and the bottom, where the Yahara narrows to a thread coming in and going out, and a channel that fine holds air with nowhere to send it. Walnut is the forgiving wood for this, tighter grained than maple or cherry, so the seal has less to fight.
Waypoints close by
Hamilton LakeDickinson County, Michigan, USA
Crescent LakeLake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada
Chiblow LakeIron Bridge, Ontario, Canada
Great LakesOntario, CanadaAlso from our workshop
Moose Tracks
From 
Howl
From 
Kodiak
From 
Nomad
From Where this is
43.1048321, -89.4189746