Snowshoeing

Snowshoes, sometimes colloquially referred to as webs, are footwear for walking over snow. Snowshoes work by distributing the weight of the person over a larger area so that the person's foot doesn't sink completely into the snow, a quality called \"flotation\". more...

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Traditional snowshoes have a hardwood frame with rawhide lacings. Some modern snowshoes are similar, but most are made of light metal while others are a single piece of plastic attached to the foot to spread the weight. In addition to distributing the weight, snowshoes are generally raised at the toe for maneuverability. They must not accumulate snow, hence the latticework, and require bindings to attach them to the feet. While today they are mainly used for recreation, primarily by hikers and runners who like to continue their hobby in wintertime, in the past they were essential tools for fur traders, trappers and anyone whose life or living depended on the ability to get around in areas of deep and frequent snowfall. Even today, snowshoes are necessary equipment for forest rangers and others who must be able to get around areas inaccessible to motorized vehicles when the snow is deep.

Development of snowshoes

Origins

Before humanity 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 the Armenians used round wooden surfaces, something akin to blocks, instead. However, the \"traditional\" webbed snowshoe as we know it today had direct origins to Northern First Nations people, e.g., the Huron, Cree, and so forth. Samuel de Champlain wrote, referencing the Huron and Algonquin First Nations, in his travel memoirs (V.III, pg. 164), \"Winter, when there is much snow, they (the Indians) 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\".

Two groups of snowshoe pioneers diverged early on, setting patterns that can still be seen today. One group abandoned the snowshoe as it migrated north to what is now Scandinavia, eventually turning the design into the forerunners of the Nordic ski. The other went northeast, eventually crossing the Bering Strait into North America.

Read more at Wikipedia.org