Blue Mountain Pottery

The company was founded in 1953 by Jozo Weider, an immigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two other immigrants from Czechoslovakia, Dennis Tupy and Mirek Hambalek, also played key roles in the early days of the company.

Weider owned the Blue Mountain ski hill in the Blue Mountains near Collingwood. He wanted to provide a line of items for the ski hill's gift store. Tupy, who worked at the ski hill, had European training in ceramics. One day, when a new ski run was being ploughed, he stepped into some heavy clay that had been turned up. Scraping it off his boot, he commented that it resembled the clays he had worked with in Czechoslovakia. Hearing the comment, Weider began to work with Tupy on a pottery project, experimenting with local clays from the Georgian Bay area.

Weider then began Blue Mountain Pottery Ltd. as an offshoot of the ski hill. Tupy worked at the moulds for the products, while Hambalek, who had training in glazing techniques, became the chief glazer for the pottery. They built their own kilns for their product. As the pottery took off, it provided an income stream that kept the Blue Mountain ski hill afloat during the summers. The pottery was originally located in a building on the ski hill, but then expanded to a location in Craigleith, and finally to a factory in Collingwood.

Blue Mountain Pottery were known for their combinations of glazes that gave each item a unique finish. The initial glaze used was a deep blue-green, combined with a darker glaze. This combination of glazes, called a "flow glaze" or a "drip glaze" process, meant that during the firing process, each piece obtained a unique appearance.

The company developed a particular combination of glazes, with light colours mixed with dark. The most iconic was a blue-green glaze, with an additional dark grey or black glaze. These colours were said to have been inspired by the evergreen trees which grew on the Blue Mountains. However, they also experimented with many other glaze combinations, such as harvest gold, cobalt blue, mocha, pewter, red, brown, and white.

Production of the red clay items with the distinctive glazing started in 1953–1954. The company went on to produce various types of pottery, from animal figurines to jugs, pots, and vases. One specialty item was a mug commemorating the Canadian Centennial in 1967. All of their products had the "BMP Canada" logo on the underside.

The company initially sold its products in Ontario, but expanded, first across Canada, and then internationally. Blue Mountain pottery was very popular in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s, often as wedding gifts. The company also expanded into the export trade, with sales to the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and the Caribbean. At one point, sixty per cent of the company's sales were for export, with two-thirds of those sales being to the United States.