Ceramics have an ancient history in Alaska, especially among the Indigenous coastal cultures of the Bering and Chukchi seas. Surprising, isn’t it, that clay was used here, given the wetter, unforested environments limiting the fuels needed to vitrify— turn clay into glass—ceramics? For their fires, Alaskans became experts in burning driftwood and sometimes rendering charcoal. Seasonal and interannual movement may also have limited the utility of clay cooking pots and storage containers. Yet ceramic artifacts found near and far from sources of raw clay materials are well documented. While the oldest pottery artifacts have been found in coastal Alaska, others have been documented from the Interior and Kodiak Island.

How do ceramics compare, over time and in those three regions? First, the clay materials vary, given their limited seasonal and spatial availability. With raw clay in hand, the local knowledge holder can begin to anticipate how the piece will shrink and possibly crack when fired. To temper this issue, ceramicists use—you guessed it—tempers, materials that can reduce the risk of breakage. Archeological fragments from Alaska have included a wide cast of organic and inorganic tempers ranging from sand and shells to fibers, fur, and fats. Some tempers can also add strength and help with drying.

After perfecting the hyper-local techniques needed for one area’s clay materials and tempers, the path of potters diverges again in varying construction methods. According to work by Shelby Anderson and Ann Fienup-Riordan’s The Way We Genuinely Live, the wooden paddle and stone anvil technique was used to make vessels in Western Alaska. In other locations, coil-building or birchbark molds were used. These variables (clay material, temper, construction method) of traditional ceramic production in Alaska are the first half of the story, and the second half are the foods that were gathered, prepared, and/or stored inside.

Today, archeologists can extract both radiocarbon dates and lipids found on pottery fragments to help discern one or more of the foods that were once present in the pot. Archeological fragments from the Brooks River on the Alaska Peninsula, a region with specialization in bowhead whale harvest and preservation, have been dated to about 3,000 years ago. Many fragments documented by Frederica de Laguna from along the Yukon River are thought to have held and preserved salmon. On Kodiak, investigators from the University of Groningen tested fragments for lipid residues and found that some 16th-century pots were used to store and process aquatic resources.

Metal pots and cast iron became increasingly available in the 18th and 19th centuries. As Alaska was pulled into new globalized trade networks, local economies experienced the intense desire of farflung nations for their furs, resulting in novel specialized hunting and trapping practices and the subsequent population collapse of the hunted species. The middle 19th century was tumultuous across the state as Indigenous communities were both affected by and sought to mitigate and thwart the effects of the colonial trade networks. By the 1870s and 1880s, many regions within the state independently experienced this time as a period of food scarcity, epidemic, and famine. After nearly 3,000 years of the maturation and spread of ceramics across the region, the harvest of clays and tempers in Alaska rapidly declined.

Even as the traditional harvest of clay and tempers declined, elders preserved local knowledge about the locations of clay materials and tempers through the use of traditional place names. James Kari and others have worked to document place names across Alaska, and many have been translated into English. Some of these place names include a reference to clay materials such as Łats Tr’uneyhdenh. Located upriver of Tanana Village near Jordan Creek, this Lower Tanana place name means “where we obtain clay.” Along the Copper River, Bestl’es Bese’ means “clay bank” when translated from Ahtna into English.

Both the traditional place names and formal communications archived at the Bureau of Indian Affairs Anchorage 14(h)(1) office tell us that while the localized production of pottery mostly ceased by the late 18th century, some rural communities continued to use local clays in limited ways for cookware and food preservation. By the mid 20th century, people in Alaska’s growing urban areas were also interested in clay materials. In 1965, the State of Alaska published a 141-page The Market Potential for Alaskan Clay Products. Interest in clay materials grew as Outside ceramists and builders made their way into the state. Many sought local clay for their work. Some individuals in Interior Alaska frequented Usibelli Coal Mine’s land for clay resources, and others in Southcentral harvested local clay from Sheep Mountain along the Glenn Highway.

Today, with thousands of years of pottery development behind them, Native and non-Native ceramicists alike are revitalizing the use of local clays. Alaska Native Iñupiaq craftsman Ed Mighell handbuilds ceramic pieces using clay from the Bootlegger Cove formation in Anchorage. Non-native ceramicists are also collecting and using local clay. Over the last decade, Heidi Morel of Fairbanks has gathered and experimented with clays from Interior Alaska. In the 21st century, the use of Alaska clays is also of interest to other industries. Alaska Glacial Essentials, for example, uses glacial mud in their manufacture of skincare products, and some industries use clays to fabricate bricks.

Here at home, the enamel coffee pot is almost empty and we’re heating up a ceramic Dutch oven to slow-cook dinner. Other items in the kitchen are made of locally harvested clays: crock pots, bowls, and mugs. The soil provides us all with an opportunity to learn about the land, and a growing community of potters using local clay enable Alaskans to serve local food and drinks in ceramic dishware made of clay from the same location that produced those ingredients.