•±76 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[December, 
you boys and girls can not go north jnst now, we must 
bring some of their winter ways to you. Many of our 
youngsters live up in the country of long winters, and 
what we are to say will be an every day matter to them, 
and they may wonder how it can interest any one to 
learn about things that are so common to them. But 
such should recollect that these Boys and Girls’ Columns 
are read by many a boy and girl that never made a snow 
ball, and never saw the water “go to sleep,” as one lit¬ 
tle girl we heard of described the forming of ice. Our 
far northern friends this montli expect—if they are not 
already in the midst of snows—not a few inches that will 
thaw into “ splosh ” the next sunshiny day, but snows 
that come to stay; not only are inches piled upon inches, 
but foot upon foot until the whole country is cover¬ 
ed several feet thick 
with a covering that 
will stay until spring. 
At first soft and fleecy, 
It makes walking al¬ 
most impossible; soon 
it settles somewhat, 
and a crust forms upon 
it, the crust in time 
gets so hard that one 
can walk upon it, but at 
■first it breaks at every 
step, and the traveller 
finds it more difficult 
than before. But people 
must go from place 
to place, and as they 
can not get through 
the snow, they must get 
over it. So the Indians 
thought, long before 
the white man came, 
and they invented the 
Snow-shoe. The Indians have net invented many things, 
but here they were obliged to contrive something, and 
they hit upon the very thing, one so well suited to its 
use, that no white man has beenable to improve upon it; 
in fact even to-day an Indian can build a better pair of 
shoes—so say those who use them—than the most skillful 
White. Had you never heard of a snow-shoe, and were 
shown one, it would be a long while before you could 
guess what it was to be used for; as you can see by. fig. 
5, it looks very little like a shoe. The frame, light and 
strong, is of bent ash; the central part is a strong net¬ 
ting of raw hide of the horse or ox; the fine netting is 
of cotton twine now, but formerly the Indians used 
bark; there is a band for the toe, and a cord or thong to 
fasten it to the foot. It is about three feet long, and a 
foot or a foot and a half wide at the widest part. This 
is the form in general use by the lumbermen and others, 
but the Indians often make for their own use a little dif¬ 
ferent style—with toes turned up as in fig. 4. So there 
are fashions, you sec, even in snow-shoes. If you wished 
to stand on the soft snow, you would lay down a board 
to keep your feet from sinking in. That is the principle 
of the snow-shoe—to give a broad surface to the foot, 
indeed very rough shoes are made simply of a piece of 
board; but the shoe should be as light as possible, and 
it is found that the net-work answers the purpose of a 
solid board - affording a broad surface with great light¬ 
ness. The foot is well protected by a piece of blanket 
folded over it, and a heavy stocking over this; the toe 
goes under the strap, and the shoe made fast to the an¬ 
kle. Being all ready, the novice has then to learn t© 
walk; this is no easy matter at first, for the shoes inter¬ 
fere, and he is very apt to tread on his own toes, and 
Fig. 4.—INDIAN SNOW-SHOE. 
over he goes. Figure 1 (on p. 475) shows the camp of a 
hunting party; one of them in making his first trial has 
met with the usual fate, and he will find it no easy mat¬ 
ter to get up without help. But we are told by a friend 
who has travelled hundreds of miles upon them in the 
Arctic regions, that one soon learns to adapt his gait to 
these strange shoes, and can walk with great ease and 
rapidity. The other picture, fig. 3, of a hunter, shows 
how the shoes are fastened, and bow the foot plays on 
them. Beer and elk, with their small sharp hoofs, break 
through the crust at every step, and are readily over¬ 
taken by the hunter 
on snow-shoes. Snow- 
shoes are necessary for 
lumbermen, hunters, 
farmers, and others who 
have to go about on the 
snow, but at the same 
time they are made 
to afford amusement 
The young men have 
snow-shoe races, and even jump with them on....Here 
in fig. 3 we have another amusement that is much 
less like work than racing in snow-shoes. A strange 
kind of a sled you will think it—but it is not a sled-it 
is a Toboggan , and in the far north tobogganing is a fa¬ 
vorite amusement with old as well as young. The to¬ 
boggan—no doubt an Indian name—is a thin board, 
turned up in front; the engraving shows the position of 
the. driver, with his steering iron, and that of his passen¬ 
ger. Given a long hill, smooth snow, a moonlight night, 
and a number of fur-clad boys and girls, and we can 
imagine that a tobogganing party must be a most lively 
scene. But the frolic has its lesson: however long and 
swift the ride—the toboggan must be drawn up hill againt 
