Lake Metigoshe
— a forest the prairie wasn't supposed to have.
Not only on a wall.
Lake Metigoshe, 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 lake straddles the line between Bottineau County and Manitoba, held by a stand of oak and aspen the surrounding prairie does not otherwise carry. The state park on the south shore was laid out by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and the trails still follow their plan. In summer the cabins fill; by November the lake locks under ice and the trail map turns into a ski map.
The place, in three passes.
Lake Metigoshe sits in the Turtle Mountains of north-central North Dakota, about ten miles north of Bottineau, with its northern bays reaching into Manitoba. The hardwood forest around it is a remnant of an older woodland the surrounding prairie has not held for centuries. Lake Metigoshe State Park, on the south shore, was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps beginning in 1935 and remains one of the most-visited state parks in North Dakota by overnight stays, drawing summer cabins and winter skiers in roughly equal measure.
The lake covers roughly 1,500 acres across an irregular shoreline of bays, points, and small islands, all carved by retreating glacial ice. Local guides count perch, walleye, and northern pike as the standing catch, and the North Dakota Game and Fish Department stocks the lake on a regular cycle. The shoreline holds enough cabins that woodsmoke marks the cold mornings, and the water at the south end warms enough in July for swimming off the public beach.
The Turtle Mountains run a four-season cycle that the surrounding plain does not. Spring comes late, often holding ice on the lake into mid-April. Summer brings the cabins, the boats, and a brief warm-water window through July and August. Autumn turns the oak and aspen across the state park trails for two short weeks in late September. Winter locks the lake by Thanksgiving and holds it solid through March, when the park's groomed ski trails carry traffic the summer trails never see.
