Snowshoe
Snowshoes are specialized outdoor gear for walking over snow. Their large footprint spreads the user's weight out and allows them to travel largely on top of rather than through snow. Adjustable bindings attach them to appropriate winter footwear.
Traditional snowshoes have a hardwood frame filled in with rawhide latticework. Modern snowshoes are made of lightweight metal, plastic, and other synthetic materials.
In the past, snowshoes were essential equipment for anyone dependent on travel in deep and frequent snowfall, such as fur trappers. They retain that role in areas where motorized vehicles cannot reach or are inconvenient to use. However, their greatest contemporary use is for recreation.
Snowshoeing is easy to learn and in appropriate conditions is a relatively safe and inexpensive recreational activity. However, doing so in icy, steep terrain requires both advanced skill and mountaineering-style pivoting-crampon snowshoes.
Development
Origins
Before people built snowshoes, nature provided examples. Several animals, most notably the snowshoe hare, had evolved over the years with oversized feet enabling them to move more quickly through deep snow.The origin and age of snowshoes are not precisely known, although historians believe they were invented from 4,000 to 6,000 years ago, probably starting in Central Asia. British archaeologist Jacqui Wood hypothesized that the equipment interpreted to be the frame of a backpack of the Chalcolithic mummy Ötzi was actually part of a snowshoe. Strabo wrote that the inhabitants of the Caucasus used to attach flat surfaces of leather under their feet and that its inhabitants used round wooden surfaces, something akin to blocks, instead. However, the "traditional" webbed snowshoe as used today had direct origins to North American Indigenous people, e.g., the Huron, Cree, and so forth. Samuel de Champlain wrote, referencing the Huron and Algonquin First Nations, in his travel memoirs, "Winter, when there is much snow, they make a kind of snowshoe that are two to three times larger than those in France, that they tie to their feet, and thus go on the snow, without sinking into it, otherwise they would not be able to hunt or go from one location to the other".
North American Indigenous peoples
The Indigenous peoples of North America developed the most advanced and diverse snowshoes prior to the 20th century. Different shapes were adapted to the different conditions in each region. Despite their great diversity in form, snowshoes were, in fact, one of the few cultural elements common to all tribes that lived where the winters were snowy, in particular, the Northern regions. Nearly every Indigenous peoples of the Americas culture developed its own particular shape of shoe, the simplest being those of the far north.The Inuit have two styles, one being triangular in shape and about in length, and the other almost circular, both reflecting the need for high flotation in deep, loose and powdery snow. However, contrary to popular perception, the Inuit did not use their snowshoes much since they did most of their foot travel in winter over sea ice or on the tundra, where snow does not pile up deeply.
Southward the shoe becomes gradually narrower and longer, one of the largest being the hunting snowshoe of the Cree, which is nearly long and turned up at the toe.
Athapaskan snowshoes are made for travelling quickly on dry powder over flat, open land in Alaska and the Canadian northwest. They were used for keeping up with dog sleds, and breaking trail for them. They can be over long, and are narrow with an upturned toe.
Ojibwa snowshoes were designed for manuverability, and are pointed at both ends, making it easier to step backwards. They are also easier to construct, as the outer frame is made in two pieces.
Huron snowshoes are tailheavy, which means they track well but do not turn easily. They are broad enough that the maximum width has to be tucked against the tail of the other snowshoe with each step, or the straddle will be too wide for the wearer. They are also meant for open country, and can carry heavy loads.
Snowshoes developed by the Iroquois are narrower and shorter, reflecting the need for maneuverability in forested areas.
The Bearpaw style was widely used in the dense forests of Quebec and Labrador. It has no tail, and turns easily.
The Plains Indians wore snowshoes on their winter season bison hunts before horses were introduced.
Use by Europeans
Pre-contact Eurasian ski-snowshoes
In 2016, "the oldest snowshoe in the world", found in a melting glacier in the Dolomites in Italy, was dated to between 3800 and 3700 BCE. It was a crude frame snowshoe.Solid-wood "ski-snowshoes", essentially short, wide versions of traditional skis, were used in Eurasia. They were made of light woods such as pine. Slender skis seem to have been more popular. Both types of footwear were lined with furs for climbing.
In Northwest North America in the early twentieth century, Roald Amundsen compared the solid-wood Norwegian skis he used with the local snowshoes worn by his travelling companions; he judged the skis faster in some conditions and the snowshoes faster in others.
Post-American-contact
North-American-type snowshoes were slowly adopted by Europeans during early colonialism in what later became Canada and the United States. The French voyageurs and coureurs des bois began to travel throughout the land of the Cree, Huron, and Algonquin nations in the late 17th century to trap animals and trade goods. In order to travel effectively in the terrain and climate, they utilized the tools of the Native populations, such as snowshoes and canoes.The Oxford English Dictionary reports the term "snowshoe" being used by the English as early as 1674. In 1690, after a French-Indian raiding party attacked a British settlement near what is today Schenectady, New York, the British took to snowshoes and pursued the attackers for almost, ultimately recovering both people and goods taken by their attackers. Snowshoes became popular by the time of the French and Indian Wars, during engagements such as The Battle on Snowshoes, when combatants of both sides wore snowshoes atop a reported four feet of snow.
The "teardrop" snowshoes worn by lumberjacks are about long and broad in proportion, while the tracker's shoe is over long and very narrow. This form, the stereotypical snowshoe, resembles a tennis racquet, and indeed the French term is raquette à neige. This form was copied by the Canadian snowshoe clubs of the late 18th century. Founded for military training purposes, they became the earliest recreational users of snowshoes.
The snowshoe clubs such as the Montreal Snow Shoe Club shortened the teardrop to about long and broad, slightly turned up at the toe and terminating in a kind of tail behind. This is made very light for racing purposes, but much stouter for touring or hunting. The tail keeps the shoe straight while walking.
Another variant, the "bearpaw", ends in a curved heel instead of a tail. While many early enthusiasts found this more difficult to learn on, as they were thicker in the middle and rather cumbersome, they did have the advantage of being easier to pack and nimbler in tight spaces. Two forms of traditional bearpaw snowshoes developed: an eastern version used by "spruce gummers" consisting of an oval frame with wooden cross braces, and a western version with a rounded triangular frame and no wooden bracing.
Traditional snowshoes are made of a single strip of some tough wood, usually white ash, curved round and fastened together at the ends and supported in the middle by a light cross-bar. The space within the frame is filled with a close webbing of dressed caribou or neat's-hide strips, leaving a small opening just behind the cross-bar for the toe of the moccasined foot. They are fastened to the moccasin by leather thongs, sometimes by buckles. Such shoes are still made and sold by native peoples.
Compared to modern Indigenous-made snowshoes, wood-and-rawhide snowshoes mass-produced by Europeans tend to have looser, simpler webbing, with wider rawhide strips, as this is cheaper to make. However, this may reduce the floatation and let the shoes sink in powder.
Modern
Outside of Indigenous populations and some competitions such as the Arctic Winter Games, very few of the old-fashioned snowshoes are actually used by enthusiasts anymore, although some value them for the artisanship involved in their construction. They are sometimes seen as decorations, mounted on walls or on mantels in ski lodges.Even though many enthusiasts prefer aluminum snowshoes, there is still a large group of snowshoe enthusiasts who prefer wooden snowshoes. Wooden frames do not freeze as readily. Many enthusiasts also prefer wood snowshoes because they are very quiet.
While recreational use of snowshoes began with snowshoe clubs in Quebec, Canada, the manufacture of snowshoes for recreational purposes effectively began in the late 19th century, when serious recreational use became more widespread.
In the late 20th century the snowshoe underwent a radical redesign. It started in the 1950s when the Vermont-based Tubbs company created the Green Mountain Bearpaw, which combined the shortness of that style with an even narrower width than had previously been used. This rapidly became one of the most popular snowshoes of its day.
Selection
As many winter recreationists rediscover snowshoeing, many more new models of snowshoe are becoming available. Ski areas and outdoor equipment stores are offering snowshoes for rent.Snowshoes today are divided into three types:
- aerobic/running ;
- recreational ; and
- mountaineering.
Regardless of configuration, all wooden shoes are referred to as "traditional" and all shoes made of other materials are called "modern".
Notwithstanding these variations in planned use, larger users should plan on buying larger snowshoes. A common formula is that for every pound of body weight, there should be one square inch of snowshoe surface per snowshoe to adequately support the wearer. Users should also consider the weight of any gear they will be packing, especially if they expect to break trail. Those planning to travel into deep powder look for even larger shoes.
Many manufacturers now include weight-based flotation ratings for their shoes, although there is no standard for setting this yet.