Glacial Lakes State Park
— the kettles the ice left behind.
Not only on a wall.
Glacial Lakes State Park, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“Glacial Lakes State Park, on the prairie coteau where the last ice sheet dropped its load and walked north. Mountain Lake sits in a kettle the ice carved, water deep and cold against tallgrass that runs to the horizon. One of the last big remnants of native prairie in west-central Minnesota, with oak savanna on the higher ground. Sandhill cranes call across the wetland in October. The horse trails climb where the moraines do. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Glacial Lakes State Park sits in Pope County in west-central Minnesota, roughly five miles south of Starbuck. The park covers about 2,400 acres on the Alexandria moraine, a hilly band of glacial till left by the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciation. Mountain Lake, a 56-acre kettle lake, is the park's centerpiece. The park was established in 1963 and protects one of the larger remaining tracts of native tallgrass prairie and oak savanna in the region, managed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Prairie color cycles through the summer in waves. Pasque flowers and prairie smoke open in May. By mid-July big bluestem, Indian grass, and butterfly milkweed lift the meadow above eye level. In late September the bluestem turns copper and sandhill cranes stage on the wetland margins. Winter ice on Mountain Lake supports a small ice-fishing tradition for crappie and northern pike. The park's prairie is burned on a roughly three-year rotation by DNR fire crews to suppress encroaching brush.
The park is open year-round, sunrise to ten p.m., with a Minnesota State Parks vehicle permit required. Sixteen miles of trail run the moraines, with hiking, horse, and cross-country ski use sharing tread on different loops. The campground offers thirty-seven drive-in sites and a handful of walk-in tent sites on the lake. A small swimming beach and rental fishing boats operate from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The town of Glenwood, on Lake Minnewaska eleven miles north, is the nearest full services and groceries.
