The snowshoe has been around a long time. In its present form, the modern snowshoe owes it origins to the Native peoples of North America. Five thousand years ago, when Nordic people were creating the ski, native people had already been traveling on snowshoes for 9,000 years.

Native people developed snowshoes by observing nature, and how the animals and birds were able to move in deep snow. One European observer even witnessed in 1640, "They [the Natives] were able to skip along the snow like birds." Native people used the snowshoe hare, beaver, and even the bear as inspiration for snowshoe styles. The frames were bent from wood like ash, birch, and even willow. They ranged from the very tightly woven Naskapi beavertail shoe to a temporary bent sapling and bark laced shoe made in situ on the trail. Most often the lacing was rawhide strips of moose or deer hide called "babiche". As a general rule, the thinner the babiche and the tighter the weave, the better the shoe will "float" and distribute weight to a larger surface area. Some ancient snowshoes were over seven feet long! Today we classify them by style : beaver-tail, swallow-tail, bear paw, raquette, longnose, Ojibwe, or elbow.

For more about Native snowshoes, read Ga-Weh-Ga-A in the Spring 2010 Issue of Si Wong Geh. Our newsletters are mailed to all current Friends of Ganondagan members - please consider becoming a member today!

© Copyright 2010 Michael Galban