Klukwan will be getting its first root cellar in decades under a project aimed at preserving foods inexpensively.
Villager Lani Hotch said the demonstration project expected to start soon is part of an effort that includes more than doubling the size of the community garden.
“My mother (Abby Strong) said that everybody in Klukwan had root cellars,” Hotch said. “In the springtime, she had to go in and get the frogs out. There were bucketfuls of them. She hated it.”
But refrigerators can’t hold the quantities that can go into a root cellar and refrigerators cost money to operate. Moreover, vegetables kept in a root cellar taste fresher than ones from a refrigerator, Hotch said.
“If it works well, other people might build them in the village,” Hotch said. The community garden’s “cellar” will be built into a hillside with earth piled on top. Hotch said she’s aware of groundwater concerns and is hoping the design eliminates the infiltration that might occur with an underground cellar.
One of the foods likely to be stored there are Tlingit potatoes, a fingerling potato grown for centuries by Natives in Southeast. Hotch said the spuds will be grown in the garden.
Root cellars aren’t unheard of around town. Resident Dan Humphrey built one into an embankment at his home at 18 Mile about 20 years ago. He used it for 10 years for keeping vegetables through winter. He also cut river ice into blocks so he could use it in summer as a refrigerator.
Cutting ice was a chore, so Humphrey got a refrigerator, but he continued using the root cellar in winter for carrots and potatoes. “You have to keep all this stuff from freezing, but the house is too warm to store them inside.”