Packing and Portaging

by Dillon Wallace

In the mode of travel here to be considered the voyageur, equipped with snowshoes, hauls his provisions and entire camping paraphernalia upon a toboggan or flat sled. The toboggan (Indian ta´-bas-kan´) had its origin in the prehistoric past among the Algonquin Indians of northeastern America. It was designed by them for the purpose of transporting goods over trackless, unbeaten snow wastes where sleds with runners could not be used, and for this purpose it is unequaled.

While for our purpose the conventionalized toboggan sold by outfitters and designed for hill sliding and general sport will answer very well, the wilderness model in use by Indians and trappers in our northern wilderness is a better designed and preferable type for the transportation of loads.

Various lengths of toboggans are in use, each intended for the particular purpose for which it was built. The longest Indian toboggan I ever saw was twelve feet in length, but from six to eight feet is the ordinary length, with a width of nine inches at the tip of the curved nose, gradually increasing to fourteen inches wide where the curve ends and the sliding surface or bottom begins, and tapering away to about six inches wide at the heel. The conventionalized type averages from four to six feet in length with a uniform width of about fifteen inches from curve to heel.

Some three or more crossbars, depending upon the length of the toboggan, are lashed at intervals across the top, the forward one at the beginning of the curve where the nose begins to turn upward, and on either side of the toboggan from front to rear side bar, and fastened to the side bars at their ends are side ropes.

Beaver-tail, bear's-paw, or swallow-tail snowshoes, of Indian make, are the shapes best adapted to the sort of travel we are considering. These models are all broad and comparatively short. The web should be of good caribou babiche, closely woven for use upon dry snow, and indeed for all-around conditions. While on wet, soggy snow a coarse web may in some respects be preferable it will not compare in efficiency with the close web on loose snow, or for all-around work under all sorts of conditions. Long, narrow snowshoes may be very good for racing where the country is smooth, but they are not suited to a rough, wooded or broken country or to hummocky snow.

The best and most practical, as well as the simplest sling or binding for the snowshoe is made as follows: Cut from an Indian tanned buckskin a thong about half an inch wide and thirty inches in length. Thread one end of this, from above down, through the web at one side of the toe hole, and from the bottom up at the opposite side. Pull it through until the two ends are even. Draw the thong up at the middle, where it crosses the toe hole, to make a loop large enough to admit the toe under it, but not large enough to permit the toe to slide forward against the forward cross-bar. Wrap the two ends of the thong around center of loop two or three times bringing them forward over the top and drawing them under and back through the loop. Slip your toes under the loop, bring the ends of the thong back, one on either side of the foot, and tie snugly in the hollow above your heel.

This sling will hold well, will not chafe the foot, and with it the snowshoe may be kicked free from the foot or adjusted to the foot in an instant.

Should the thongs stretch in moist weather, the sling may be tightened by simply taking an additional turn or two (without untying) around the toe loop.

I believe that lamp-wicking would answer as well as buckskin thongs, though I have never used it because I have always carried an ample supply of buckskin.