Wender·Vista
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve
shown on ceramic, 12-inch tileUnited States
in southeastern Alaska, on the Yukon border

Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve

— — a country too large to fit in one frame.

— 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

“The largest national park in the United States, at thirteen point two million acres — larger than Switzerland. Four mountain ranges meet here: the Wrangells, the St. Elias, the Chugach, and the eastern Alaska Range. Glaciers cover roughly a third of the park, including the Malaspina, whose piedmont lobe is broader than Rhode Island. The only roads are gravel, and they end. Most of the country is reached by bush plane or on foot.

from the studio
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve
— bring it home

Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve, 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 Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve

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

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve covers 13.2 million acres in southeastern Alaska, making it the largest national park in the United States — larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Switzerland combined. Established in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the park sits where the Wrangell, St. Elias, Chugach, and eastern Alaska Range mountain systems converge. Together with the adjacent Kluane, Glacier Bay, and Tatshenshini-Alsek parks, it forms the largest internationally protected wilderness on earth, jointly inscribed by UNESCO in 1979.

— the stone

Nine of the sixteen highest peaks in the United States rise within the park. Mount St. Elias reaches 18,008 feet at the Yukon border, the second-highest summit in the country after Denali. Mount Wrangell, at 14,163 feet, is an active shield volcano still venting steam from its summit caldera. The mining ruins at Kennecott, abandoned in 1938 after twenty-seven years of copper extraction, sit at the foot of the Root Glacier and have been preserved as a National Historic Landmark.

— the silence

Two gravel roads enter the park — the McCarthy Road and the Nabesna Road — and both end. Beyond their last mile the country is reached by bush plane out of Chitina or Glennallen, by raft on the Copper and Chitina rivers, or on foot. Annual visitation runs near 80,000, a fraction of what Yellowstone receives in a single week. Inside the park, settlements are measured in single digits, and the Wrangell Mountains hold roughly sixty percent of Alaska's named glaciers.

— informed by NPS — Park Statistics
— where
United States · Alaska, United States
— within
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
— position
61.7104° N · 142.9856° 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.
at the lake
McCarthy
park-interior town
8 km NE
Kennecott
historic mining camp
100 km W
Chitina
park entrance town
60 km E
Kluane National Park
Canadian park
250 km SW
Valdez
port city
N
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve
McCarthy
Kennecott
Chitina
Kluane National Park
Valdez
— common questions

What people ask.

A few questions we get about Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve — and about bringing the piece home.
— about the place

It covers 13.2 million acres, making it the largest national park in the United States. The park is larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the country of Switzerland combined, and roughly a third of it is covered by glaciers.

It was established in December 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the same legislation that created or enlarged several other major Alaskan parks. It was inscribed by UNESCO in 1979 as part of a transboundary World Heritage Site.

Mount St. Elias, at 18,008 feet, on the border with the Yukon. It is the second-highest mountain in the United States after Denali, and one of nine US fourteen-thousand-foot peaks that lie within the park.

Kennecott was a copper mining camp operating from 1911 to 1938. McCarthy is the adjacent town that survived after the mine closed. Both are reached by the McCarthy Road and a footbridge, and Kennecott is a National Historic Landmark.

Two gravel roads enter — the McCarthy Road from Chitina and the Nabesna Road from the Tok Cutoff. Both end inside the park. Most of the interior is reached by bush plane out of Chitina or Glennallen, or by raft on the major rivers.

Yes. Mount Wrangell is an active shield volcano with a summit caldera that vents steam and has produced minor thermal activity in recent decades. Its last confirmed eruption was in the early twentieth century.

— about the piece in your home

Many of our customers have given the Wrangell-St. Elias tile to family who have flown into McCarthy or hiked the Root Glacier. The scale and the four-range silhouette read as this park, not as a generic mountain scene.

The piece sits naturally in mountain-modern, alpine cabin, and dark-wood Pacific Northwest rooms. The blue-and-grey ice palette also reads well against board-and-batten walls, leather, and warm metal hardware.

Yes. The cool glacier palette and four-range horizon pair with the textured wood, blackened steel, and natural-stone surfaces that have anchored mountain-modern and alpine-modern interiors over recent seasons.

A single Large covers a standard console or narrow sofa wall. A four-tile Mural fills a longer sofa wall with room around it, and a nine-tile Mural anchors a feature wall in a great room or stairwell.

Yes, with the Dura Satin or Matte finish. Both are scratch-resistant and stable in steam, so a Medium or Mural will hold in a bathroom, a kitchen splash, or a covered porch.

A microfibre cloth and clean water are enough. The colour is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure and lives beneath a thin glossy finish, so it will not lift with normal cleaning.

Yes. Every WenderVista piece is original to our studio in Knoxville, Tennessee. Reid Wender curates the atlas and the work is hand-finished in-house. There is no licensing.

— if this one stayed with you

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