Wender·Vista
Burgess Shale
shown on ceramic, 12-inch tileCanada
high above Field, in Yoho National Park

Burgess Shale

— — the half-billion-year quiet of soft bodies in stone.

— Where it lives

Not only on a wall.

A small tile on the nightstand catching the morning. A larger one above the fire. Yours, wherever you spend the slow hours.
— On the nightstand, a 6-inch on a walnut stand
— Among the books, a 6-inch leaning into the spines
— Beside the kettle, a 12-inch propped
— Down a quiet hall, an 18-inch floating off the wall
— Above the fire, the 24-inch in a walnut surround
— a note from the studio

“A ridge of dark shale between Mount Field and Mount Wapta, in the Canadian Rockies above the little town of Field. The quarry where Charles Walcott split open the first slabs in 1909 still looks much as it did then. The fossils inside are the oldest soft-bodied animals anyone has found — a Cambrian sea, pressed into the mountain. The guided hike up is long and the wind off the ice never quite stops.

from the studio
Burgess Shale
— bring it home

Burgess Shale, 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.

What kind of piece?
One tile — square or rectangle.
How big?
the popular one — counter, shelf, nightstand
6 × 6 in · 15 cm · 1.6 lb
Surface finish
A clear glossy finish — the artwork reads as if under resin. Ideal for show-pieces and framed wall art.
How it sits
A hidden cleat — sits ¼″ proud of the wall.
$58
Hand-finished and shipped from our studio at the foot of the Smokies. On your wall in about ten days.
— size
6 × 6 in
15 cm
— weighs
1.6 lb
solid in the hand
— surface
ceramic, hand-finished
art rests beneath a thin glossy finish
— from
Knoxville, TN
our family studio, at the foot of the Smokies
— start a Coaster Set

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.

— about Burgess Shale

The place, in three passes.

A little of what's known, in case you fall down the rabbit hole — or want to go see it yourself.
— the place

The Burgess Shale sits on Fossil Ridge in Yoho National Park, British Columbia, between Mount Field and Mount Wapta, at about 2,300 metres. Charles Doolittle Walcott of the Smithsonian found the main quarry in 1909 while crossing a high pass above the town of Field. The shale preserves the soft-bodied life of a Cambrian sea roughly 508 million years old. Yoho was one of the first sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list for the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks in 1984.

— the stone

What makes the shale extraordinary is the preservation. Most fossil beds keep only shells and bone; the Burgess kept the gills, the guts, the antennae of animals that had no hard parts. Specimens of Anomalocaris, Opabinia, Marrella and Hallucigenia have come out of these slabs since Walcott's first season. The Royal Ontario Museum and the Smithsonian hold the largest collections. The rock itself is a fine, dark mudstone laid down at the foot of a Cambrian reef and lifted later by the building of the Rockies.

— the visit

The quarry is reached only on a guided hike, run jointly by Parks Canada and the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation out of Field, BC. The standard Walcott Quarry route is about 22 kilometres round trip with roughly 800 metres of climb, and runs from early July into mid-September. Permits are limited; the hike fills months ahead. Independent visitors are not allowed at the fossil beds, so the ridge stays as quiet as it was in Walcott's first summers.

— where
Canada · Yoho National Park, British Columbia
— within
Yoho National Park
— elevation
2,300 m · 7,546 ft
— position
51.4419° N · 116.4719° W
— the neighborhood

What's nearby.

A handful of named places within an hour's walk or short drive. Some we've already painted; some we will.
8 km S
Field
village
11 km W
Emerald Lake
glacial lake
13 km NE
Takakkaw Falls
waterfall
27 km E
Lake Louise
glacial lake
N
Burgess Shale
Field
Emerald Lake
Takakkaw Falls
Lake Louise
— common questions

What people ask.

A few questions we get about Burgess Shale — and about bringing the piece home.
— about the place

A Cambrian fossil bed on Fossil Ridge in Yoho National Park, British Columbia, holding soft-bodied marine animals roughly 508 million years old. Charles Walcott of the Smithsonian discovered the main quarry in 1909.

Most fossil sites preserve only hard parts. The Burgess kept gills, guts and antennae, giving science its clearest window on early animal life. The site is a key piece of evidence for the Cambrian explosion.

On a high ridge between Mount Field and Mount Wapta in Yoho National Park, above the village of Field, British Columbia. The Walcott Quarry sits near 2,300 metres elevation.

Only on a guided hike run by Parks Canada and the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation from Field. Independent access to the fossil beds is not allowed, and the season runs roughly early July to mid-September.

The standard Walcott Quarry route is about 22 kilometres round trip with around 800 metres of climb. It is a long mountain day, usually 10 to 11 hours, and permits sell out months ahead.

Yes. The Burgess Shale lies inside Yoho National Park and is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1984. Collecting fossils is forbidden.

— about the piece in your home

It often is. The Burgess Shale is one of the named places in the field, so the recognition tends to be immediate. A Medium on a study wall, or a Small with a handwritten note from the studio, carries well.

The dark shale palette and quiet composition suit Mountain-modern, Minimalist Scandinavian, and warm Library studies. It also sits well in a wood-and-stone Cabin-modern room alongside other Rockies pieces.

It fits the naturalist and curiosity-cabinet direction many studies have taken — fossils, botanicals, antique maps. The tile reads as a quiet field specimen rather than a poster, which is the point of the trend.

Above a sofa, a single Large or a four-tile Mural carries the wall. Above a console or in a study nook, a Medium holds the eye. For a long hallway, a nine-tile Mural reads from across the room.

Yes. Order the Dura Satin or Matte finish for any wet or high-touch wall. Both are scratch-resistant and steam-tolerant. The Glossy finish is for framed wall art in dry rooms.

A soft microfibre cloth and water. No abrasives, no ammonia, no bleach. The colour is infused into the ceramic surface, so it will not lift with normal cleaning.

Yes. Every WenderVista piece is original to our studio in Knoxville, Tennessee. Nothing is licensed and nothing is reproduced from another artist. The eye behind the atlas is Reid Wender's.

— if this one stayed with you

A few you might also love.

Hand-picked by the eye that found Sorapis. Same air, same kind of quiet.