But the best snow shoe we made was the Iroquois shoe. The frame of this shoe was made of hickory strips of the same width and thickness as used in the Sioux shoe, but
Fig. 29. Bending the Hickory Strips. 8 feet long. The strips were bent in a loop and the ends were bolted together. How to bend the wood without breaking it seemed a very difficult problem. Wood, we knew, could be easily bent without breaking if boiled or steamed for a while; but we had nothing large enough in which to boil a strip of wood 8 feet long. Bill hit upon the plan of wrapping the stick with burlap and then pouring boiling water on it until it became sufficiently soft to bend easily. An old oats-sack was cut up into strips and wound onto the hickory sticks for a distance of 18 inches at each side of the center. We then repaired to the
Fig. 30. Frame of Iroquois Shoe. kitchen to do the steaming. The hickory stick was held over a large dish-pan filled with boiling water, and from this we dipped out the water and poured it slowly over the burlap wrapping of the stick. After a little of this treatment the stick was sufficiently steamed to permit of bending to the required shape. The ends
Fig. 31. Iroquois Snow Shoe. were then firmly secured by means of bolts passed through bolt holes which had been previously drilled. The frame was completed by fitting the spreader sticks in place, after which it was laid away to dry. When the frame was perfectly dry we started weaving the web. In this case, however, instead of cord we used cane strips, which we had bought from a chair caner. This necessitated drilling holes in the side sticks to receive the cane strips. The web consisted of strands crossing each other diagonally, as illustrated. Our second pair of Iroquois snow shoes was made with a web of rawhide which we bought from a hardware store at Millville.
The Ainu Snow Shoe.
One of the snowshoes described in the book was very much like Fred’s barrel-hoop snow shoe in appearance. According to the description, it was a type used by the Ainus, a peculiar people living in the cold northern islands of Japan. As the shoe seemed quite simple and rather unique, we thought we
