Snowshoes!

Snowshoes
            As a boy living near the North end of town my friends and I spent many a winters’ day sliding down the hills just outside the city limits. We used sleds and toboggans and very often a large piece of cardboard which was a “poor boy’s” vehicle. On a rare occasion someone would have a pair of old wooden skis which we usually deemed as useless. Little did we know that those old skis were most likely cross-country skis used by our transplanted Scandinavian forefathers. When the snow got too deep to walk in we made paths to each other’s houses or built snow forts in the drifts and avoided the deep stuff all together.
           All of the sleds, toboggans, skis and such were strictly for fun and we never dreamed of any other way to use those implements that had been really developed long before to help people navigate in the winter snow. That was how I felt until I was in the fifth or sixth grade and I was introduced to snowshoes. A friend invited me to spend a snowy Saturday snowshoeing with him along the frozen Green Bay shoreline. It was a great experience but the snowshoes did get the best of me. I had no idea what a set of them were called at the time and didn’t get to try snowshoeing again for some time.
            A few years later someone invited me to go rabbit hunting in the snowy winter wonderland we call Upper Michigan and I was issued a pair of shoes that were most likely traditional Michigan style with the long, heavy tail. These were probably very good for snowshoeing in the open but they were too big for me and for rabbit hunting in the woods they were a disaster! I gave up snowshoes again for a while after that experience.
            Jump ahead now to a time when I was in pretty good physical condition and living in a rural area with lots of winter rabbit hunting and decided that snowshoes might be worthwhile to try again for some of the snowier periods during rabbit season. I did a bit of research and found out that snowshoes were actually very useful winter utensils that allowed people to get out and about during the winter. There were three or four types of snowshoes that were generally used and each type had a feature for a specific purpose.
            The most common of the traditional shoes is the Michigan (or Huron) which has a large tail for stability but is heavy and difficult to turn with or become proficient with unless you have lots of practice. Its frames are made from one piece of wood steamed and bent to shape and laced with rawhide or sinew. The next type is the called the Ojibwa and looks like the Michigan but slightly smaller and with a frame made from two pieces of wood rather than one. The third type is the Alaskan and it has a turned up front and is very long making it very good for long treks in the open such as in its namesake state, Alaska, for traveling long distances. It is not a very maneuverable shoe though so it is best for trails where sharp turns are few. The last type is the Bear Paw. This is a smaller round, tailless shoe that is more suited to use in the woods such as trappers might need.
            I tried a set of Bear Paws so I could maneuver in the woods with a minimum of crashes with trees and such. They were ok and great in the thick woods but not so great on the logging road trails I often hunted.  I searched for something better and my first pair of shoes was a modified pair of Michigan type shoes on a smaller aluminum frame with manmade webbing. This set was army surplus and much smaller and more maneuverable than the wooden ones and more importantly, affordable.  The result was a set of snowshoes good on the trail and yet good in the woods if I was careful. My dogs had a tough time keeping up when the snow was deep and often followed in my trail rather than trying to break a trail of their own. Only when we jumped a rabbit did they get out and chase. I had so much fun that my older brother Larry had to get several sets of snowshoes because he thought I was having too much fun!
            Over the years the winter months were much more fun with the snowshoes than ever before and I only regret I didn’t get the correct set much sooner. My wife took up cross country skiing for a while and we would spend quite a few days out in the woods or on the trails, her on skis and me on my snowshoes. If you are active out in the Snow Belt snowshoes are a wonderful way to enjoy the snow. The wooden snowshoes are commanding high prices due to the labor intensive manufacturing but there are so many high-tech shoes made with manmade materials and combinations of styles that there is a set for everyone who wants to learn the art of snowshoeing.
           My days playing in the snow are over now and the only pair of snowshoes I ever owned, my old pair of army surplus shoes, is hanging on the garage wall. I should probably give them to a niece or nephew but they don’t have the appeal of video games. Whether it is the changes in our society to high tech or just a loss of outdoor interest, kids now don’t seem to want to be outside like we used to be when we were young.
Chris