Hayward
— — a small town the lakes wrote first.
Not only on a wall.
“A small town in Sawyer County, in the lake country of northern Wisconsin. Lac Courte Oreilles to the south, the Namekagon River running west, and the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest pressing in on every side. A four-and-a-half-storey muskie made of fibreglass leans out over the parking lot of the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. The American Birkebeiner crosses the finish line on Main Street every February.
Hayward, 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.
The place, in three passes.
Hayward is a small city in Sawyer County in northwestern Wisconsin, on the upper Namekagon River about 140 kilometres southeast of Duluth, Minnesota. The 2020 census recorded about 2,500 residents within the city limits. The surrounding Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest covers more than 600,000 hectares of pine, birch, and shallow lake. Lac Courte Oreilles, one of the largest lakes in the state, sits about ten kilometres south of town. The Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe reservation borders the city to the southwest.
The Namekagon River, a designated unit of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System since 1968, runs west from Lake Namakagon through the town and down to its confluence with the St. Croix. The river holds smallmouth bass, brown trout, and the muskellunge that gave the town its fishing reputation. The Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame opened on the Hayward shore in 1970 and houses the four-and-a-half-storey fibreglass muskie sculpture visible from County Highway B. Lake Hayward itself sits at the centre of the town.
Every February the American Birkebeiner brings about 13,000 cross-country skiers from across North America to a fifty-kilometre course that ends on snow trucked into Main Street. The race began in 1973 and now runs from Cable in the north down through the Chequamegon-Nicolet to the Hayward finish. In summer the same town hosts the Lumberjack World Championships in late July, contested on a log pond a short walk from the visitor centre. Quiet months sit between.