For a tramp over untrodden or “virgin” snow, of course a large shoe of considerable area is desirable; for racing purposes over a beaten track, a smaller shoe is used. The regulation width of a pair of racing shoes is not less than ten inches of gut; the weight, including strings, must not be less than one and a half pounds.
The Indians and the half-breeds seem to enjoy a monopoly of the manufacture of snowshoes, and of toboggans as well.
The snowshoe enabled them, in former days, to traverse with ease, when in pursuit of game or on the warpath, leagues of wilderness otherwise impassable in the winter season; the toboggan they used as a sledge on which to drag their provisions or to convey to camp their slaughtered game.
It is true that there is in use in Norway an implement somewhat similar to the American snowshoe, called a “ski,” and composed of a couple of long, narrow slabs of wood, one for each foot, painted and turned upward at both ends. The ski, however, is principally used for sliding down declivities and jumping crevasses; it is ungainly and awkward to use on level ground. The aid of a staff, or alpenstock, is necessary in skiing, and a description of it hardly comes within our province.
“Raquettes” was the name originally given by the hardy Canadian coureurs du bois and the voyageurs of the Hudson Bay Company to the snowshoe, and we can easily imagine of what inestimable value it must have been to these adventurous individuals in their trips of almost incredible length, difficulty and peril. To the present day hardly a farmhouse in all broad Canada is without its pair of snowshoes, and they are generally of the sturdy, old-fashioned kind, long and broad and substantial.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
In hunting the moose and the caribou, in the wilder parts of the Dominion, the snowshoe plays an important part. The crust on top of the snow is insufficient to sustain the weight of these heavy animals; they break through it at every stride, its sharp edges lacerate their legs, and the hunter can follow their course guided by the blood-marks on the snow. Sustained by his trusty shoes, he soon overtakes the laboring game, and a well-directed shot puts it out of misery.
But it is in its aspect as a sport, as a means of healthful recreation, that we have principally to consider snowshoeing. Of late years many clubs have been formed all over Canada, and in those parts of the neighboring Republic favored with the slightest suspicion of the “beautiful,” and of all these the premier, in point of seniority, is the Montreal Club, founded in 1840, and composed originally of twelve members.
As Canada is the home of snowshoeing, so is Montreal, par excellence, the leading city of Canada in this branch of athletics, both on account of the severity and the long duration of its winters, the natural advantages possessed by the city as regards its situation, and the widespread devotion among its young men to sports in general.