Apgar Village pier on Lake McDonald
— the long water that looks back at the peaks.
Not only on a wall.
“The pier reaches a short way into Lake McDonald from the village at its southwest foot. From the boards, the lake runs ten miles north toward Stanton Mountain and the Garden Wall, and the famous coloured pebbles, red and green argillite and mauve quartzite, show clear through ten feet of water. In summer the rental canoes line up along the shore. In October the village empties early.
Apgar Village pier on Lake McDonald, 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.
Apgar Village sits at the southwest foot of Lake McDonald, just inside the west entrance of Glacier National Park in northwest Montana. Lake McDonald is the largest lake in the park: roughly 10 miles long, 1.5 miles wide, and 472 feet deep at its deepest point. The lake fills a basin carved by glacial ice during the last glaciation. The village has a small set of cabins, a general store, and the pier, a working dock used by the historic Lake McDonald boats run by the Glacier Park Boat Company.
Lake McDonald's bed is lined with colourful pebbles of red and green argillite and mauve quartzite, eroded from the Belt Supergroup rocks of the surrounding peaks. The clarity of the water allows the colours to show through several feet of surface. The lake is fed by McDonald Creek, which drains a basin reaching back to Logan Pass on the Continental Divide. Surface temperatures peak in late August around the low 60s Fahrenheit. The water is cold enough to keep swimmers brief.
The pier is reached on foot from the Apgar Village parking lot, about a five-minute walk. Park entry is timed-ticket in summer along the Going-to-the-Sun corridor, and the west entrance can hold long lines after seven in the morning. The Lake McDonald boat tours, run by the Glacier Park Boat Company, depart from a separate dock at Lake McDonald Lodge twelve miles up the eastern shore. Apgar itself stays open into late October most years, weather permitting.