The thick smell of hay and dust hung
in the air of the old barn … a very old barn on a very remote mountain
in central Norway. I reached down for a weird contraption made of aluminum
and rubber that was half buried in old hay. The objects I picked up were
an odd little pair of snowshoes. They seemed so out of place in a country
where skiing is a national obsession, where a favorite saying is fodt
med ski pa bina (born with skis on), and where just possibly the whole
sport of skiing originated. It got me wondering about the history and evolution
of snowshoes vs. skis.
No archeological evidence exists for either snowshoes or
skis, but it is widely believed that some sort of winter walking aid developed
in central Asia around 4000 B.C. Who knows, maybe the first people got
inspiration from observing snow-dwelling critters with oversized feet moving
relatively effortlessly over the white stuff while they wallowed in it.
The Lake Superior region harbors several “snowshoed” species including
moose and woodland caribou, snowshoe hare, Canada lynx and the spruce grouse,
which even grows scaly fringes on its toes in winter to effectively increase
the surface area of its feet.
From the interior of Asia people migrated east and west.
Skis evolved to their highest form in Russia and Scandinavia while the
snowshoe idea was brought across the now extinct Bering Land Bridge to
North America. Varying styles of snowshoes were perfected by different
North American tribes. In the eastern arctic/subarctic lands of Labrador
and Quebec, where the snow is deep, extremely dry and unstratified, the
nearly round beavertail shoes laced very finely would support a Montagnais,
Cree or Naskapi hunter on top of the seemingly bottomless powder. Here
in the Lake Superior Basin, our land is brushier and our snow firmer with
settled layers. These conditions called for a different style of snowshoe.
What evolved among the Ojibway and western Cree was a narrower shoe (to
maneuver), less finely laced (denser snow) and with an upturned to (to
cut through brush and knife through crusty snow). Black ash frames were
laced with rawhide (moose or deer) and occasionally with moose intestines
or sinew.
 Johann
Georg Kohl, an early German explorer wrote in 1855 that “the arrangement
of the instrument as the Ojibbeways (sic) built it, cannot be improved
upon.” Whatever the design, snowshoes allowed native peoples to get around
in often waist-deep snow, haul toboggans, move camp, hunt and trap birds
and mammals and thrive in a hostile environment during a brutal season.
Snowshoeing reached a new plateau in the late 1800s when
it became a form of recreation, not just a mode of transportation. The
country was booming and people wanted to play. They didn’t call it the
“Gay ’90s” for nothing. Snowshoe clubs popped up all over the region. Minnesota
alone supported more than 60. Most mimicked the clubs of Quebec, some of
which had been around since 1849. Uniforms were de rigeur. Capotes
made of brightly colored wool blankets secured by a sash were worn with
matching toques and leather high-moccasins. Color themes identified your
club and often your region. Blue was the banner of the Montreal snowshoers
while clubs from Quebec City sported red and the Trois Rivieres district
donned white. Activities included races, hurdle course, night tramps, snowshoe
hill sliding and the ever popular Sunday outings where the group would
snowshoe overland to a club member’s home, eat a hearty meal, sing and
socialize, and then head back down the trail.
In November 1885, wealthy St. Paul entrepreneur George R.
Finch and his friends in the Chinato Snowshoeing Club decided to start
the “St. Paul Ice Palace and Winter Carnival Association” to promote Minnesota’s
“dry, clear, clean, bracing atmosphere.” You must understand that at the
time, there was a nasty rumor afloat back East that the winters in the
upper Midwest were not fit for humans. The Chinato Showshoe Club was going
to prove them wrong with their “enthusiastic determination on all sides
to get all the fun possible out of tobogganing, snowshoeing and other out-of-door
winter sports,” so said an 1889 newspaper article. Probably the most renowned
and most fashionable club was the Nushka Toboggan and Snowshoe Club. Its
membership read like a who’s who of St. Paul’s elite. The Nushka (Ojibwa
word for “look!”) men and women sported classy read and black blanket coats
with matching toques and sashes. An April 1890 article in the St. Anthony
Hill Graphic praised the example set by the club and its positive
effect on the evidently sedentary youth of the time. (Some things never
change.)
“They won admiration when first their well-muscled men and
bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked ladies dared challenge Minnesota winter (and)
Jack Frost.… When the Nushkas first began to make out-of-door winter
sport fashionable … they inaugurated a noble undertaking. They have done
for the health, not only of their own members, but 100s of imitators among
the young people of the city and state, what no doctors nor elaborate teachings
… could do. They made good health popular.”
But by the turn of the century, most showshoe and toboggan
clubs had metamorphosed into social clubs where outdoor activity took a
back seat to exclusive parties and fancy functions.
Today snowshoeing is enjoying its latest boom. People are
realizing that “Hey, this is easy and fun … and I can go anywhere!” The
Lake Superior basin offers the best snow and the wildest terrain the Midwest
has to offer. So get out this winter and enjoy the world’s second oldest
sport … snowshoeing!
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