SNOW-SHOES
The shoe in the form of a tennis racket (Fig. 14 B) is the shape commonly used by the Esquimaux and is about thirty-four inches long and fifteen inches wide. It is made somewhat similar to the Iroquois shoe but the mesh is more open.
The oval shoe (Fig. 14 C) is made from two U-shaped rims lashed together at the middle and provided with two spreaders. Two stout pieces of rawhide are laced in the ends, and through the middle a lacing of thongs is woven across between the spreaders and sides of the rim.
These and many other forms of snow-shoes can be made by the boy who is interested in snow-shoe travelling. The wood can be procured anywhere and the rawhide thongs may be purchased at a hardware store. They are sold as belt-lacings for machinery, but they can be easily split and so made available for snow-shoe use.
Chapter VII
SAIL-SKATING AND SNOWBALL ARTILLERY
A Skating-sail
Sail-skating is a very enjoyable means of getting over the ice, and with properly constructed frames and sails a very respectable rate of speed can be maintained. In using a sail the boy is the boat, and by his manipulation of the sheets he can go where he pleases, either before the wind or tacking, as in a boat.
The skating-sail shown in Fig. 1 is an improvement over the old style of attaching two diamond-shaped cloths to the ends of yard-arms. To make the frame obtain two clear pine or white-wood sticks twelve feet long, one inch and a quarter square, and taper them slightly towards the ends with a plane. At the same time round the corners at the top of one stick and bottom of the other as shown in Fig. 2 C, which represents a sawed-off section of both sticks. With linen line wind the sticks for an inch or two for every nine or ten inches of their entire length to strengthen them. Paint these windings a dark color and then varnish the sticks or color them with a stain.
Now procure two other sticks, each five feet six inches long and seven-eighths of an inch square, and plane them smooth, at the same time tapering the ends slightly. These are for the cross-arms, and at the middle of each one lash fast a block five inches long and seven-eighths of an inch square having a pin driven in each end as shown in Fig. 2 A. These pins fit in small holes made at the inside of the yard-arms four feet and six inches from either end.