Devils Lake
— a lake with no outlet, that the prairie cannot drain.
Not only on a wall.
Devils Lake, 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.
“The largest natural lake in North Dakota, in a closed basin that has no outlet to any river. The Dakota name is Mni Wakan, Spirit Water. The lake rose roughly thirty feet between the early 1990s and 2011, flooding farms and roads around it before slowly drawing back. It is shallow, broad, brackish at its edges, and full of perch and walleye that draw ice-houses out every winter.
The place, in three passes.
Devils Lake is a large, shallow, terminal lake covering the closed basin of the same name in north-eastern North Dakota. It is the largest natural lake in the state. The Dakota called it Mni Wakan, often rendered Spirit Water; the English name comes from a mistranslation. The basin has no outlet to the Sheyenne or Red rivers under most conditions, so water leaves only by evaporation, which is why the surface elevation swings sharply with multi-year wet and dry cycles.
The lake rose roughly thirty feet between 1993 and 2011, more than tripling its surface area and flooding farms, roads, and parts of small towns around it. State and federal agencies eventually built an emergency outlet to the Sheyenne River to take the edge off. The water sits brackish, with salinity rising as the basin shrinks in dry years. Ice covers the lake from late November into April most years; ice-house clusters spread for miles every winter for the perch and walleye fishery.
Reached from US Highway 2 at the city of Devils Lake. Grahams Island State Park, on a former island the rising water once isolated, is the main public access for camping, boat launches, and a small visitor centre. The Spirit Lake Tribe reservation borders the lake on the south, and Sullys Hill, the small national game preserve managed by the tribe, sits a short drive south of Fort Totten. Summer brings walleye boats; winter brings ice-houses across the open lake.
