Trumpeter swan Red Rock Lakes
— — the refuge that kept the species.
Not only on a wall.
“Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge sits at sixty-six hundred feet on the floor of the Centennial Valley, with the Centennial Mountains rising to the south. The refuge was set aside in 1935 when trumpeter swans in the lower forty-eight had fallen to fewer than seventy birds, almost all of them here. The lakes and marshes were left alone, the swans were left alone, and the population came back. A pair on still water carries the whole story in one shape. The valley road in is unpaved for most of fifty miles.
Trumpeter swan Red Rock Lakes, 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.
Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge covers about 51,000 acres in the Centennial Valley of Beaverhead County, in southwest Montana, at roughly 6,600 feet. The refuge was established in 1935 by executive order under President Franklin Roosevelt for the express purpose of saving the trumpeter swan, the largest native waterfowl in North America. The Centennial Mountains rise to the south along the Idaho border and feed the refuge with snowmelt creeks. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages the lakes, the surrounding marshes, and the wet meadow uplands as designated wilderness.
The Centennial Valley is one of the quietest places in the lower forty-eight. There is no through highway; the road in is gravel from either end, fifty miles by way of Lakeview or Monida. Most days the loudest sound near the lakes is the wind in the sedges and the calls of the swans themselves, which carry across open water for half a mile or more. The valley is home to elk, moose, and grizzly, and to one of the densest concentrations of nesting trumpeter swans in the contiguous United States.
Trumpeter swans nest at Red Rock Lakes from late April through August, raising cygnets on Upper and Lower Red Rock Lake. Many move south to the Henrys Fork in winter when the refuge waters freeze, though some birds overwinter on warm-spring seeps. Spring snowmelt brings the meadows alive with sandhill cranes and migrating waterfowl. The road in is typically passable from late May to October. The refuge headquarters at Lakeview is staffed seasonally and maintains a small visitor area.