My first efforts at snowshoe making came about through trying to
repair the broken filling of a pair of Indian made snowshoes. In
removing the winding from the toe cord I accidentally discovered the
place where the filling had been tied at the finish of the last
round. This filling was badly worn and I reasoned that if I could
remove it in the reverse order from that in which it had been strung
I would know how to weave the intricate web of a snowshoe. I tried it
out, successfully filling the old frames, and while it was far from
perfect work I had at least learned the secret of snowshoe weaving.
Removing the stringing from a pair of snowshoes, carefully noting
every turn, twist and loop, is the best way to learn how the filling
is strung, but not every person who has ambitions along this line has
a pair of snowshoes so much worn that he would care to risk removing
the rawhide strands. Clearly written instructions, supplemented with
working drawings, are the next best.
When a pair of snowshoes are to be made the first thing is to plan
the size, shape and general character of the shoes. The frames, or
bows, are the first step of the actual making.
Snowshoe frames are made of tough, light wood. Many kinds of wood are
used, and while I am not prepared to say positively which kind is
best I believe that young, straight grained white ash is about as
good a wood as can be found. But my experience has been mostly with
white birch, and my instructions for making the frames apply to the
use of this wood in particular, for it is peculiar in many ways, and
cannot be split and worked as freely as certain other kinds of wood.
To find a suitable tree for this purpose is sometimes difficult. I
once went into the bush a distance of seven miles to get a tree which
I had found, split it, and carried one half home. I surely earned
that wood, but I made from it a pair of frames which were so light
that old bushmen said I would break them on my first trip; however, I
used them all winter, then gave them to an old German who wore them
until the filling was completely gone, yet the frames were still
good.
The tree from which the frames are to be made should be not more than
eight inches in diameter, and one of six inches is better. It should
have drooping branches, and must have eight or ten feet of the trunk
straight and clean, free of limbs, and absolutely without a particle
of twist to the grain. Such trees may be found occasionally growing
along the edge of a swamp.
After the tree has been felled and a section of the proper length cut
off, a groove about one and a half inches deep is carefully cut the
entire length along one side, care being used not to strike hard, as
that would injure the wood. When the groove is finished a similar one
is cut on the opposite side. The stick should be split with wooden
wedges, and if it is properly done the split will follow the grooves.
The best half should then be chosen for the proposed snowshoe frames,
and this should be ripped lengthwise with a saw, or split, as
desired. Each of the pieces will make a frame or bow.
[Illustration: MAKING A SNOWSHOE FRAME.]
One side of the stick is then cut and planed until it is perfectly
straight, and its face at a right angle to the bark side, or at least
it must be so in the middle, which forms the toe of the snowshoe, for
there should be nothing taken off the bark side, not even the bark,
until after the wood is bent into shape for the snowshoe frame. It is
best if the entire stick is worked out from the bark side, but the
wood may be planed straight at all parts except in the middle, where
the greatest strain comes. Then the third side of the stick is marked
off with a marking gauge and either cut or sawed to the mark. The
fourth side, the inside of the stick, which will be the inside of the
finished frame, is then cut down to the proper dimensions, but on
this side an even thickness is not maintained, the toe portion being
cut thinnest, with the heel--ends of the stick--coming next. For a
snowshoe of average size, say 44 inches in length and 14 inches wide,
the stick should measure eight and a half feet in length, one inch in
width, seven-eighths inch thick at the parts which will become the
middle of the shoe (B to C in figure one), one-half inch at A, and
about five-eighths inch at the ends.
Before anything more can be done with the wood a form for bending the
frames must be made. A convenient form is shown in figure two. For
steaming the wood properly it is necessary to have a steaming box,
which is merely a long case made of narrow boards, open at both ends.
The stick is placed in this case and the steam from a boiling tea
kettle turned in one end so that the hot steam travels the entire
length. The wood should be steamed thus an hour and then it is ready
for bending.
Figure two shows how the wood is bent and secured on the form. The
toe must be formed very carefully, bending only a little at first,
then releasing, then bending a little more, and so on until the wood
can be easily and safely bent to complete shape and secured by
nailing blocks to the form. The form should be made from two-inch
planks, so that it will accommodate the two frames. The wood is
allowed to dry thoroughly on the form before filling, and this will
require at least two weeks.
After the frames are dry they may be taken from the form, the tail
end of each fastened and the crossbars fitted into place. The ends
may be secured with a wood screw until after the frames have been
strung, but the screw should then be removed and the ends tied with
rawhide, through gimlet holes, the part between being counter sunk so
that the thongs will be protected from wear. This is shown in figure
four.
The crossbars are pieces of flat, strong wood, about one and a fourth
inches wide and nearly a half inch thick, with rounded edges. These
should be placed about 16 or 17 inches apart, measuring from center
to center, and so placed that when the frame is suspended on the
hands midway between these two sticks the tail will outweigh the toe
by just a few ounces. These cross-bars should be carefully mortised
into the frame as shown in the small diagram in center of figure
three.
[Illustration: LOOP TO FASTEN THONGS TO THE FRAME.]
In both sides of the frame from D to E, also from F to G, gimlet
holes are bored through the bows from outside to inside at intervals
of two inches, or a little more, the holes being in pairs obliquely
placed, and countersunk between. Three holes are also bored through
each crossbar, as shown.
The frames are now ready for filling. Regarding material for filling,
for ordinary use, there is nothing equal to cowhide, a fairly heavy
skin. The green hide should be placed under running water for a week
or more, until the hair can be pulled out easily. The hair should
then be pulled, or scraped off, but care must be used that the grain
of the skin is not broken or scraped away. The hide should then be
thoroughly stretched and dried in an airy but shady place. When dry
it may be cut into strands. A whole hide will fill several pairs of
shoes. The portion along the back is best and this should be used for
filling the middle section. The lighter parts from the edges of the
skin will answer for stringing the heels and toes. All strands should
be cut length-wise of the skin, and full length. Their width will
depend on the thickness of the skin, the weight of filling desired in
the snowshoe, the general character of the snow in which they will be
used, and the size of mesh in the web. If cut while dry, then soaked,
stretched, and again allowed to dry, as they will be when strung into
the frames, it will be found that the length of the strands will be
increased greatly, while the thickness will be much decreased. It is
well to cut several trial widths, so that the proper weight of strand
may be determined. For a coarse webbed shoe the thongs, after being
stretched and dried, should be about five-sixteenths of an inch wide
for the middle portion of the shoe; for the ends an eighth inch is
sufficiently heavy. These strands of hide should all be soaked and
stretched thoroughly, allowed to dry while stretched, and then soaked
again just before using, and strung into the frames while wet.
[Illustration: METHOD OF FILLING THE TOE SECTION.]
The ends are filled first and as I always commence with the toe I
will describe my method of stringing that part first. A strand of the
water-soaked rawhide is stretched tightly around the inside of the
toe portion through the little gimlet holes, as shown in figure five,
starting and finishing at one of the holes in the forward crossbar.
This thong is called the lanyard, and its purpose is to hold the
filling which is woven into the toe.
A small needle of very hard wood, or bone, is used for filling the
ends. I have shown in the drawing how the filling runs. Starting in
the lower left-hand corner it goes up to the part marked 1, passes
around the lanyard, twists back around itself about an inch and then
goes down to 2, there passing around the lanyard and again twisting
around itself, then around the lanyard at 3, a single twist, and then
across to 4, where it again turns around the lanyard, then twists
down around the first strand to the starting point, under the lanyard
at 5 and up to 6. From there the strand loops and twists the same as
in the first round, except that at the lower corners it loops back
around the first round, then twists around itself, then around the
lanyard, and on the same as before. This looping back of every second
round is continued until the filling extends across the entire
forward part of the toe, when it is discontinued, and each round is
made like the first. This looping back throws the filling alternately
from side to side.
The filling must be stretched in very tightly and must not be allowed
to slip. When one strand is used up another is joined on in the
manner shown. Care must be used to see that every round crosses the
others in the proper way, and all the twists must be made alike. The
amateur should keep these pictures before him for a guide.
Occasionally he should look his work over carefully, and if an error
is discovered the stringing should be removed and made right. It will
be necessary to straighten out the completed portions occasionally,
and for this purpose I use a round-pointed hardwood stick. The weave
will finish at the center of the crossbar.
[Illustration: HOW THE HEEL SECTION IS STRUNG.]
The filling in the tail end or heel is very simple and is shown so
plainly in the diagram that I think a description superfluous. It
starts at the upper right-hand corner and finishes in the middle of
the crossbar. I again advise that great care be used to get the
twists and loops right, and to see that the thongs cross in the
proper way.
[Illustration: FILLING THE MIDDLE OF THE SNOWSHOE.]
Filling the middle section is also more simple than it appears at
first glance, for it is practically a repetition of the system used
in the toe portion. The edges of the wood should be rounded slightly
to prevent them cutting the thongs. The Northern Indians wind this
part of the frame with a strip of cloth, to make a sort of cushion
for the tightly stretched thongs. This cloth winding serves its
purpose well, but in a country where wet snows are common its use is
not advised, for the cloth holds the dampness and causes the rawhide
to rot.
While the system of stringing this part may appear quite intricate it
is in reality simple, and it is the more elaborate arrangement of the
forward portion that makes this section appear so complicated. The
stout bunch of thongs shown in the drawing, known as the toe cord, is
strung in first, the rawhide strand being tightly stretched and
crossing the frame some four or five times, a loop being thrown
around the whole on the inside of the frame on both sides in the last
round. This should be so executed that the last loop will be on the
right-hand side. The thong then loops around this bunch of cords
again about an inch from the frame, from there being strung up around
the cross-bar, then twisting around itself back to the starting
point, from there passing down diagonally to the center of the rear
cross-bar, where it loops and twists again, then up to the upper
left-hand corner, where it twists up the same as on the opposite
side. From here it will be noted the thong runs down a short distance
and loops around the left side of the frame. The simple loop used for
this purpose is clearly shown in a small drawing. From this loop the
rawhide strand twists back about an inch, then runs straight across
the shoe to the right, where the loop is repeated. This completes the
first round of the filling. The second round starts in about the same
way as the first, goes up to the crossbar at the left of the first
round, twists back to the toe cord, from there to the rear crossbar,
then up to the left-hand corner. Here the system changes, for the
strand is run up and twisted around the toe cord and first round of
filling before it is looped to the frame. After looping it is brought
across to the right, where it again loops and twists, and then twists
around the toe cord and first round of filling exactly as on the
left, after which it is run down to the rear crossbar. In this way
the stringing continues, every second round twisting forward around
the preceding two. This binds the filling firmly and, it will be
noted, also alternates the successive rounds from side to side. When
the process of filling has progressed so far that there are four
twists around the forward crossbar, on each side, this twisting
should be stopped and the remainder of the forward portion left open,
for this is where the foot of the wearer works through when walking.
This open space should measure about four and a half inches in width,
and if it does not the filling must be shifted. In very coarse meshed
shoes three twists on each side will be all that can be given. An
extra turn around the toe cord should also be made on each of these
two twists of the filling, for considerable strain is thrown onto
this portion. From this point on, instead of running forward and
twisting around the crossbar, the filling simply twists around the
toe cord. But here care must be used to keep the filling smooth and
the toe cord flat, otherwise sore feet will result from wearing the
shoes. The weave finishes in the center of the toe cord and there the
end of the thong should be securely and neatly fastened. The last
touch is to wind a strand of rawhide about the twisted thongs on each
side of the foot opening and around the toe cord, to make these parts
smooth and protect them from wear.
In the drawings of the heel and toe sections it will be noted that I
have shown the web tied to the crossbars with twine. This is not a
permanent feature, for when the center of the shoe has been filled
these strings may be removed.
After making one pair of snowshoes the workman will undoubtedly see
wherein he can improve on the design of the shoe, on the style of
filling, or in the method of making. There are many labor-saving
devices and ways of handling the material that make the work easier.
But these the amateur snowshoe maker will learn in time and I believe
I have now given all the instructions necessary for those who want to
make their own snowshoes.