Snowshoe tales & facts

GIVE ME SNOWSHOES!

By Richard L. Neuberger

Skies are the hot rods of the winter woods. The snowshoe is the steady reliable family sedan that carries the groceries. I'll stick to a pair of snowshoes every time.

During construction of the Alaska Highway a crew was marooned in heavy snowdrifts beyond Whitehorse. Several of the isolated men had come down with flu. We had some star skiers from New England in our outfit that set off spectacularly to the rescue.

A day or so later, the skiers as well as the snowbound crew had to be succored by five trappers striding along on oval-shaped Mackenzie River snowshoes. With their knapsacks of food and medical supplies, our doughty ski champions had not been able to maintain balance. Nor could they shift direction readily in the forests of stunted spruce. Spills were frequent, with loads strewn across the snow.

This experience was enough to convince me that, although skies may be fine for a few swoops downhill, they are utterly worthless as transportation.

Let's document this claim. The organization which oversees more snow-covered terrain than any other on the North American continent is the famous Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Listen to Sergeant Howey of “G” Division, responsible for law and order in the Arctic:

“Skies are not used for our patrol work in the North. All winter patrols are carried out by dog teams, and the members of the force are equipped with snowshoes. When snow conditions are adverse, the member has to break trail by snow shoeing in front of the team.”

A pair of skies would not push aside enough snow to permit a Pekinese to pass, much less a string of robust Huskies. Skis are synthetic devices and their surface is narrow. Snowshoes, by contrast, are molded after the pads which nature gave the lynx and caribou. Their webbing is like a huge paw.

A wayfarer toting his grub dares not rely on skies, for it is difficult to stay upright even with shoulders free. This anchors skiers to lodges and inns. They rarely get into the real wilderness because they cannot take food and shelter with them.

A further example of the decadence of skiing is the vast assortment of lifts, tows, drags, and escalators at virtually all ski resorts. Every last breath of exercise is gone from the sport. Your skier never actually sees the pageant of the solitudes in winter. He is hoisted uphill in an armchair and glides back down on a pair of planks. The majesty of the Sierras, the Rockies, or the Appalachians is to him a fuzzy blur of green and white.

The snowshoer, on the other hand, moves at a leisurely but dependable pace. He can watch Chinook fingerlings through the glazed ice of a creek; he studies in fascination where elk have “yarded” to stand off marauding wolves. He kneels to note the footpad of the cougar and the glutton. He looks for activity around the frozen turret of mud and branches in which a beaver family waits out the siege of snow and cold.

I remember the half-breed trapper near the Alaska-Yukon international line who tried out skis at the urging of our downhill enthusiast. That night the splintered hickory slats fed the trapper's campfire. “No good on trail,” he explained. “OK going down. Uphill or on level, better in bare feet.”

This, in a nub, is what ails skies. On the descent they are marvelous-that is, unless you must pack supplies. Otherwise, they might as well be chopped into kindling to heat the noonday soup. Skiers themselves prove this when they refuse to ski back up to the summit. The downhill glide is all that interest them.

The skier probably looks disdainfully at snow shoeing. To him it may seem mundane and dull. This is because he never has slogged comfortably through groves heavy with gleaming new snow or plowed a trail for fourteen frisky sled dogs, their bushy tails waving like plumes. Can the artificial sensation of skiing compare with such a vivid experience.

Your true Northerner would no more set up his wife and children in a place where skies were the sole means of exit than he would leave a roof off his cabin. He would be uncertain, and rightly so, of their chances of getting safely to a doctor or school. Indeed, you can look intently in the Arctic and never see a pair of skies, although snowshoes are stacked in the “corner” of every hut, barracks, and igloo. To these hardy people snowshoes are transportation, skis merely a gadget.

Skies may offer brief exhilaration, but the snowshoe helps unlock the secrets of the wilderness. It is a way to travel, and its users do not have to cling to lifts and tows. They get across country on their own.

The Mounties have a standard joke about the Englishman who was posted for duty at Fort Chipewyan. “Hi say, old chap, the recruit is alleged to have asked, “what keeps your feet warmer in winter-moccasins or snowshoes?”

Of course, even the rawest novice in his red coat would know that there's not warmth in skis!

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOUR OLD TIME TALES OF SNOWSHOEING OR SOME INTERESTING FACTS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EMAIL THEM TO borntobeoutdoors@gmail.com AND I WILL BE HAPPY TO INCLUDED THEM ON THE PAGE.