Snowshoeing

“ Rogers' Rangers, too, are a story by themselves, but a story which does not concern Canada. Skating and snowshoeing by winter, canoeing by night in summer, Rogers passed and repassed the enemy's lines times without number, as if his life were charmed, though once his wrist was shot when he had nothing to stanch the blood but the ribbon tying his wig, and once he stumbled back exhausted to Fort William Henry, to lie raging with smallpox for the winter. ”

“ When the snow sticks, the snowshoes get wet and heavy and damp snow packs on top and clings to them, and when these troubles come it is best to cut wood, build a good fire and camp by it until evening. Stand the snowshoes up in the snow where the sunshine and the warm wind will dry them, make some tea and eat your lunch, then roll into your blanket and rest until the sun gets low, when you can resume your journey.
It is difficult traveling, at the best, and the strength of the traveler is heavily taxed. Always he has the heavy pack and the snowshoe trail seems endless. ”

“ He had not carried a string-end here, but he had made a trail! His snowshoe tracks probably were not yet obliterated under the wind-blown snow. Could he feel his way along them back to the cabin?
The miles were many and long, but he wouldn't have to creep on hands and knees all the way. Perhaps he could walk, stooped, touching the depressions in the snow at every step. In his own soul he did not believe that he had one chance in a hundred of making it through to safety. Crawling, creeping, groping from track to track would wear him out quickly. ”

“ To put them on the feet the foot must enter the loop from forward toward the rear, and when the loop is on the foot the latter must be turned within the loop and then passed under the toe band.
Everybody wears snowshoes—men, women, and children. Without them travel in winter would be an impossibility, and as the capture of furs is made in winter and the ground to be hunted over must of necessity be of great area, the snowshoe becomes a necessity as much as the canoe in summer. ”

“ On the day that the three hunters emerged on their snowshoes in search of meat for their depleted larder, the wind pressed gently against it. Because its trunk was rotted away it swayed and fell heavily.
There was nothing particularly memorable in this. All trees die; all of them fall at last. Its particular significance lay in the fact that as it shattered down, sliding a distance on the steep hillside, it scraped the snow from the mouth of a winter lair of a scarcely less venerable forest inhabitant,—a savage, long-clawed, gray-furred grizzly bear. ”

“ You have struggled through clogging snow until each time you raise your snowshoe you feel as though some one had stabbed a little sharp knife into your groin; it has come to be night; the mercury is away below zero, and with aching fingers you are to prepare a camp which is only an anticipation of many more such camps in the ensuing days. For a week it has rained, so that you, pushing through the dripping brush, are soaked and sodden and comfortless, and the bushes have become horrible to your shrinking goose-flesh. ”

“ When the snowshoe was pressed into the snow, its nose was confronted by a vertical wall of snow twelve inches high. If the foot, in rising, slanted forward the slightest bit, the nose of the shoe penetrated the obstructing wall and tipped downward till the heel of the shoe struck the man's leg behind. Thus up, straight up, twelve inches, each foot must be raised every time and all the time, ere the forward swing from the knee could begin.
On this partially packed surface followed the dogs, the man at the gee-pole, and the sled. ”

“ While Virginia cooked lunch, Bill cut young spruce trees and made a sled: and after the meal pushed out through the whirling snow to being in the remainder of the moose meat. It was the work of the whole afternoon to urge the sled up the ridge and then draw it home through the drifts. The snow mantle had deepened alarmingly during the night, and he came none too soon. It was only a matter of days, perhaps of hours, before the snow would be impassable except with snowshoes. Until at last the snowfall ceased and packed, traveling even with their aid would be a heart-breaking business. ”

“ Not less elegant and useful than the canoe is the snowshoe, without which the Indian would be badly off indeed. It is not, as many suppose, used as a kind of skate, with which to slide over the snow, but as a machine to prevent, by its size and breadth, the wearer from sinking into the snow; which is so deep that, without the assistance of the snowshoe, no one could walk a quarter of a mile through the woods in winter without being utterly exhausted. ”

“ Even the rapids of the river had begun to freeze. Often the clouds broke away at nightfall and let the cold come in,—stabbing, incredible cold that meant death to any human being that was caught without shelter in its grasp. The land locked tight: no more could Bill hunt for his mine in the creek beds. The last of the moose went down to their yarding grounds, and even the far-off glimpse of a caribou was a rarity. The marmots had descended into their burros, the snowshoe rabbit hopped, a lonely figure in the desolation, through the drifts. ”

“ LEAVING HIGH LIFE.
Near the end of March I resolved to leave Eureka Valley. Sonora, Tuolumne County, was fifty-six miles distant. That was my goal. Thirty miles of the way lay over deep snow, and was to be travelled over on snowshoes. The Norwegian snowshoe is a long wooden skate or runner, turned up at the forward end, greased on the lower side, with a strap in the middle to hold the foot. The Indian snowshoe is a flat network, fastened to a frame, in shape something like an enlarged tennis racket. It is like locomotion shod with a couple of market-baskets. ”

“ A fine warm day, with a bright sun, be it known, is one of the most dreadful calamities that can befall a snowshoe traveller, as the snow then becomes soft and sticky, thereby drenching the feet and snow-shoes, which become painfully heavy from the quantity of snow which sticks to and falls upon them. In cold frosty weather the snow is dry, crisp, and fine, so that it falls through the network of the snow-shoe without leaving a feather’s weight behind, while the feet are dry and warm ”

“ For an hour or more, running like startled deer, they had tried to follow their own snow-shoe trail back over the wide barrens into the friendly woods; but already the snow had filled it brim full, and whatever faint trace was left of the long raquettes was caught up by the gale and whirled away with a howl of exultation. Before them as they ran every trail of wolf and caribou and snow-shoe, and every distant landmark, had vanished; the world was but a chaos of mad rolling snow clouds ”

“ The snowshoe is a necessity for the sportsman and trapper whose pleasure or business leads him out in the open during the winter season, when roads and trails are heavily blanketed by a deep fall of powdery snow. But the use of the web shoe is by no means confined to the dweller in the wilderness, since the charm of wintry wood and plain beckons many lovers of the outdoors to participate in this invigorating sport, and snowshoe tramps are fast growing in popularity in and about our cities and towns. ”

“ The snowshoe therefore was merely copied from nature by mankind and no doubt it was a study of the natural animal snowshoe that gave the early-day savage the great idea and set him to work on a scheme by which he could increase the size of his feet in a convenient and practical manner, and thus be able to walk on the snow instead of wading through it. ”

“ We crawled at a foot's pace through changeful snow-drifts. The road was obliterated, and it was my duty to keep a petroleum stable-lamp swinging to illuminate the untracked wilderness. My little girl was snugly nested in the hay, and sound asleep with a deep white covering of snow above her. Meanwhile, the drift clave in frozen masses to our faces, lashed by a wind so fierce and keen that it was difficult to breathe it. My forehead-bone ached, as though with neuralgia, from the mere mask of icy snow upon it, plastered on with frost. ”

“ These are all very different conditions of snow and a snowshoe that is perfect in form for one kind of travel or one kind of snow cannot be perfect for another, although it may answer for all kinds of use. In widely separated districts the prevailing weather conditions may cause one or another condition of snow to predominate the season through, and as a consequence the proper snowshoes to use in any particular place are the ones adapted to the prevailing snow conditions. Likewise the nature of the country with respect to surface and vegetation greatly influence the styles of snowshoes. ”

“ The small animals I have mentioned when caught with snow on the ground, are simply walked on top of by the hunter's snowshoes; once he is pinned down so that he cannot move, the trapper slips his left hand under snowshoes and secures the fox or whatever it is by the neck with a tight grip of the thumb and fingers. Then the snowshoe is withdrawn until it holds the hind quarters only; the hand with the head and neck is elevated until the body is extended to its utmost. ”

“ He moved on again, descending the steep side of a little ravine, and she followed. One of his snowshoes caught in a protruding root and, instead of slowing to free it with care, he pulled it violently out, and she heard the dry, seasoned wood crack. He looked down, swore; saw that the wood was not broken through and went on; but as he reached the bottom of the slope, she leaped downward from a little height behind him and crashed down upon his trailing snowshoe just behind the heel. ”

“ The legs must be kept straddled at a ridiculous distance apart, and the first few days’ practice seems to split a person nearly in two. If, with the Indian snowshoe, you tumble down on a hillside it is almost impossible to get up again, and the unfortunate must remain in a recumbent position very much like that assumed by the heathen when they go down on all fours before their god, until some one unstraps his shoes. I preferred the Norwegian shoe. The first pair I ever used I made one evening about dusk. I was going toward Eureka Valley from{218} Sonora, and had met the first fallen snow. ”

“ A moderate walk on snow-shoes on a fine winter’s day, with agreeable companions, when the sky is blue, the air still, and the snow frozen hard, is a very pleasant thing; and so is a hunting expedition, with attendants carrying refreshments, and the certainty, even though game may not be shot, of a good meal after it at a cheerful camp-fire, with abundance of buffalo-robes for covering; but to go on, tramp, tramp, tramp, day after day over the icy plains, often with a sharp wind blowing, and but a scanty fire and imperfect shelter at the termination of the journey, is a very different matter. ”

“ Snowshoes, made with thongs of deerskin,
Tightly stretched on frames of hardwood,
Bore him lightly over snowdrifts,
Marking all his path behind him;
Till the sunshine, growing stronger,
Melted every trace of winter. ”

“ Bill walked in front, breaking trail. He carried the ancient rifle ready in his hands.
The truth was that Bill did not wish to overlook any possible chance for game. Each hour traveling was more difficult, the snow encroached higher, and soon he could not hunt at all without snowshoes. It was not good for their spirits or their bodies to try to live without meat in the long snowshoe-making process. This was no realm for vegetarians. The readily assimilated animal flesh was essential to keep their tissues strong. ”

“ It is flanked on all sides by the savage, beetling peaks marshalled in endless ranks like the spears and unsheathed lances of war-gods in their domain midway between earth and heaven. Out across the death-white pallor of snow, in the death-chill of the ice-fields, we strike out slowly, cautiously, for the surface of the ice, now hidden by snow, is cleft by crevasses even to the mountain's core, and a misstep, a fall into their depths would be doom. Far away over the white stretches, a gaunt, spectral coyote watches our painful progress. ”

“ Breaking trail would not be so laborious if one could wear the large snow-shoes that are used for hunting. But the hunting shoe, though it carries the man without fatigue, does not help the dogs. The small shoe known as the trail shoe, packs the snow beneath it, and by the time the trail breaker has gone forward, then back again, and then forward once more, the snow is usually packed hard enough to give the dogs some footing. Footing the dog must have or he cannot pull; a dog wallowing in snow to his belly cannot exert much traction on the vehicle behind him. ”

“ But do the best they can the rain will beat in between the logs, and after the first snowstorm one night, a white pointed drift is found on the breakfast-table. They laugh at it, and call it ice-cream, but they almost feel more like crying, with cold blue fingers, and toes that even the warm knit stockings can't keep comfortable. Never mind, the swift snowshoes will make them skim over the snow-crust like birds flying, and the merry sled-rides that brother Christian will give them will make up for all the trouble. They will soon love the winter in the snowy woods. ”

“ In many regions a fall of snow is followed by days of fair weather. During these days most of the snow melts; often the earth is almost free of one snow before another fall comes. In places of this kind the game have periods of ease. But in vast territories the snow comes, deepens, and lies deep over the earth for weeks. To endure long-lying deep snows requires special habits or methods. The yarding habit, more or less intensely developed, is common with sheep, elk, deer, and moose of all snowy lands. ”