Adventure and adventurers > Hudson Bay, or, Everyday life in the wilds of North America

72
THE SNOW-SHOE.
from twelve, fifteen, thirty, to forty feet long, and from
two to four feet broad in the middle, a whole Indian
family of eight or ten souls will travel hundreds of
miles, over rivers and lakes innumerable; now floating
swiftly down a foaming rapid, and anon gliding over the
surface of a quiet lake, or making a portage overland
when a rapid is too dangerous to descend; and, while
the elders of the family assist in carrying the canoe, the
youngsters run about plucking berries, and the shaggy
little curs (one or two of which are possessed by every
Indian family) search for food, or bask in the sun at the
foot of the baby’s cradle, which
stands bolt upright against a tree,
while the child gazes upon all
these operations with serene in¬
difference.
Not less elegant and useful than
the canoe, is the snow-shoe, with¬
out which the Indian would be
badly off indeed. It is not, as
many suppose, used as a kind of
skate, with which to slide over
the snow, but as a machine to prevent, by its size and
breadth, the wearer from sinking into the snow; which
is so deep that, without the assistance of the snow-shoe,
no one could walk a quarter of a mile through the
woods in winter without being utterly exhausted.
It is formed of two thin pieces of light wood, tied at
both ends, and spread out near the middle, thus making
a kind of long oval, the interior of which is filled up
with network of deer-skin threads. Strength is given