Adam Walker, owner of Canmore Cave Tours, says people frequently ask to take something home with them from the Rat’s Nest Cave tour. Because the four-kilometer limestone system is a designated Alberta historic resource, that’s not allowed. But after crawling around the cave for a couple hours, tourists always bring something out that they never took in, the cave mud.

Hoping the sediment extracts could be made into something, Walker took the mud one floor down to Katie Borrowman, manager of the Of Cabbages and Kings Pottery. While the mud didn’t have enough clay content to form a piece, she discovered it did make an excellent glaze for tumblers.

So began a partnership between Walker and Borrowman, which has resulted in a uniquely Canmore product.