[DRUMMOND] THE CANADIAN SNOWSHOE 319 
All these men, Franklin, Richardson and Rae, did most of their 
Arctic work through Hudson’s Bay Company posts with dogs, sleds 
and snowshoes. They were well known in the west as famous travellers 
and expert snowshoers. Franklin’s diary for several years is still 
at one of the northern Hudson’s Bay Company Posts. It is related 
of Richardson and Rae that in their land travels with dog sleds and 
snowshoes less than 100 miles a day was considered a poor day’s 
journey, and as the driver had to do all this distance on snowshoes he 
might reasonably be considered a qualified traveller. 
The annals of many other famous pioneers of our country could 
be given, and they all add their testimony to the record of the service 
rendered by the snowshoe. 
Most engineers can call to mind many occasions on which the 
snowshoe has been used in an engineering way as a means of ac- 
complishing work which would have been impossible without it. 
In large and continuous work like the actual building of a railroad, 
horses are used because the construction work makes this possible, 
but, in winter preliminary railroad survey work, dependence must be 
placed upon the snowshoe for maintenance of transport and in the 
daily operations of the survey. It has been used in the winter surveys 
of all of the transcontinental and important railways of the country 
such as the Canadian Pacific, Grand Trunk Pacific, Canadian Northern, 
Intercolonial and other railroads. While upon this subject it might 
be stated that, upon one occasion at least during the days of the 
Government Canadian Pacific Railway surveys, parliamentary infor- 
mation about certain mountain passes became necessary. Engineers 
volunteered and the work was accomplished by means of the snow- 
shoe. 
I should like to make myself clear as to the importance of the 
snowshoe for I think it is not fully understood. At the beginning 
of the winter when. the snow begins to fall, it is possible to move 
about without the snowshoe, but, as the depth increases this becomes 
more and more difficult, and travelling finally becomes impossible 
without its use. 
Under such winter conditions the snowshoe is an engineering 
appliance of equal or even greater importance than the transit or level. 
The snowshoe is used in the ordinary avocations of life as an aid 
to trade and barter, travel and transportation, the chase, lumbering, 
mining, distribution of mails, administration of justice in the far 
north, and in many other ways. In short, through it total isolation 
has been prevented in the winter, and the ordinary pursuits of life 
go on as usual; from this point of view alone it has been of great 
service to man. 
