ie, THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT (ETH. ANN. 18 
SNOWSHOES 
Among the western Eskimo snowshoes are in common use. They 
are of the greatest service for traveling, both over the sea ice and on 
land, and are used by both men and women, but more largely of course 
by men, as their more active life necessitates almost constant travel 
while hunting, visiting netting places on the ice, or traps on the shore. 
For traveling on land, where the snow is softer and deeper than on the 
sea ice, snowshoes with larger and finer netting are used. Figure 63 
represents snowshoes, used for land travel, which were obtained near 
the head of Norton bay. They are made of two pieces of wood, spliced 
in front where they curve upward at the toe, held together by means of 
Fic. 63—Snowshoes from Norton bay. 
two crossbars in the middle, before and behind the foot-rest. The net- 
ting in front of the first crossbar is hexagonal in shape, and in the rear 
consists of ten cords passing through holes in the hindmost crossbar 
and converging to the thong that binds the frame together at the heel. 
The foot-rest is on a stout netting made of widely spaced crosscords 
attached to the framework on the sides as well as to the crossbars. 
This is the general style of snowshoe worn about the shores of 
Norton sound and thence southward to the Kuskokwim, and up lower 
Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Various forms of coarsely netted 
snowshoes are used on the sea ice at different points along the coast. 
Figure 64 shows the style of snowshoe used at Cape Darby. The 
frame is in two pieces, rounded in cross section and tapering in front, 
where they are curved strongly upward at the ends which overlap and 
