MURDOCH.] SNOWSHOES. adil 
used by the writer on many short excursions around the station 
during the winters of 1881-82 and 1882-83. They were old when pur- 
chased. 
I had but one opportunity of seeing the process of making the frames 
of the snowshoes. Utbw’ga, the “inland” native frequently mentioned, 
a particularly skillful workman, undertook to make a pair of snow- 
shoes for Lieut. Ray at our quarters, but did not succeed in finishing 
them, as the ash lumber which we brought from San Francisco proved 
too brittle for the purpose. Having a long piece of wood, he * got out” 
the whole rim in one piece. Ordinarily the splice at the toe must be 
made, at least temporarily, before the frame can be bent into shape. 
He softened up the wood by wrapping it in rags wet with hot water. 
Some of the other natives, however, recommended that the wood 
should be immersed in the salt water for a day or two, from which I 
infer that this is a common practice. After slowly bending the toe, 
with great care, nearly into shape, he inserted into the bend a flat block 
ot wood of the proper shape for the toe and lashed the frame to this. 
A pointed block was also used to give the proper shape to the heel; 
the bars being inserted in the mortises before the ends were brought 
together. The temporary lashings are kept on till the wood dries into 
shape. The toes are turned up by tying the shoes together, sole to 
sole, and inserting a transverse stick between the tips of the toes. 
The use of finely finished snowshoes of this pattern is of compara- 
tively recent date at Point Barrow. Dr. Simpson! is explicit concern- 
ing the use of snowshoes in his time (185355). He says: ** Snowshoes 
are so seldom used in the north where the drifted snow presents a hard 
frozen surface to walk upon, that certainly not half a dozen pairs were 
in existence at Point Barrow at the time of our arrival, and those were 
of an inferior sort.” I have already mentioned the universal employ- 
ment of these snowshoes at the present day, so that the custom must 
have arisen in the last thirty years. The pattern of shoe now used is 
identical with those of the Tinné or Athabascan Indians (as is plainly 
shown by the National Museum collections), and I am inclined to be- 
lieve that the Point Barrow natives have learned to use them from the 
“Nunatanmiun,” from whom, indeed, they purchase ready-made snow- 
shoes at the present day, aS we ourselves observed. The ‘Nunatan- 
miun,” or the closely related people of the Kuwtk River, are known to 
have intimate trading relations with the Indians, and even in Simp- 
son’s time? used the Indian shoe, sometimes at least. The fact that in 
recent times families of the “ Nunatanmiun” have established the habit 
of spending the winter with the people of Point Barrow and associat- 
ing with them in the winter deer-hunt, would explain how the latter 
came to recognize the superior excellence of the Indian shoe. 
This is more likely than that they learned to use them from the east- 
ern natives, whom they only meet for a short time in summer, though 
1 Op. cit., p. 243. 2Op. cit., p. 244. 
