Esker Snowshoes: Canadian Outdoor Heritage, Made for Continued Use

Long before snowshoeing became a winter pastime, snowshoes were working equipment.

Across what is now Canada, Indigenous Peoples developed snowshoes as an essential means of winter travel. Their construction reflected generations of knowledge about moving through snow and responding to the landscape underfoot.

There was no single Canadian snowshoe. Designs varied between regions and communities because the conditions varied too. A snowshoe made for travel through dense forest needed to perform differently from one intended for deep snow over more open ground.

Materials also reflected place. Makers worked with woods and animal materials available to them, adapting construction through knowledge passed between generations.

This relationship between landscape, materials and purpose is one reason traditional wooden snowshoes remain relevant today.

Esker’s Canadian-made snowshoe collection continues the practical principles behind these traditional forms, using wooden frames with hide webbing and leather bindings.

The history of snowshoes in Canada begins with Indigenous knowledge.

For First Nations living in regions with long, snow-covered winters, travelling efficiently over snow was essential. Snowshoes allowed hunters to reach areas that could be inaccessible on foot and helped families move between camps.

Canadian museum records give us a glimpse into just how important they were. The Canadian Museum of History’s Gwich’in collection describes snowshoes as the principal means of transportation through a landscape that could remain covered by snow for eight months of the year. They were used for hunting and travelling between camps. At times, they were even put to work as snow shovels when setting up a new camp.

The knowledge behind their construction was later adopted by European newcomers. Snowshoes became particularly important to those travelling through the Canadian interior, including people involved in the fur trade.

By the nineteenth century, snowshoeing had also developed into an organized recreational activity in parts of Canada.

Its origins, however, reach much further back.

Snowshoes were first developed by Indigenous Peoples to make winter travel possible.

Look at traditional snowshoe designs side by side and their differences can be striking.

Some are long and narrow. Others have a much shorter footprint. Tails may be pronounced on one design and absent from another.

Those differences have a purpose.

In deep, unpacked snow, greater surface area helps distribute the traveller’s weight. In dense forest, an exceptionally long snowshoe can become cumbersome. Where routes are already packed, less flotation may be needed and a smaller snowshoe can make movement easier.

Historical Gwich’in accounts offer a particularly clear example.

Two principal sizes of snowshoe were documented: a larger hunting snowshoe and a smaller trail snowshoe. The larger form supported a hunter travelling through fresh snow. The smaller version was used on trails that had already been broken or packed. It could also be used when the work being done required greater freedom of movement.

The same practical thinking influenced the materials used to build snowshoes.

In Gwich’in territory, birch was historically preferred for the frames. Spruce or willow could be used when birch was unavailable. A Gwich’in pair collected in the Yukon in 1888 and now held by the Canadian Museum of History is made from birch with rawhide thong.

Elsewhere, museum collections reveal different combinations. An Innu or Naskapi snowshoe from Quebec or Labrador in the McCord Stewart Museum collection is made with wood, sinew and hide. Another historical pair attributed to Atikamekw, Anishinaabe or Eeyou origins in Quebec or Ontario incorporates wood, babiche and hide.

An archival photograph from Lac Seul, Ontario, taken in 1920, shows an Anishinaabe woman stringing the netting of a Cree-style snowshoe.

These records remind us that there was never one material recipe or one universal shape for the traditional snowshoes of Canada. Construction developed in relationship with local knowledge and available materials.

At first glance, a traditional snowshoe is remarkably simple. A shaped wooden frame provides its structure. Crossbars support the frame, while an open network of webbing creates the surface that carries the traveller over the snow.

Behind that apparent simplicity are generations of accumulated knowledge.

The wood needed to be suitable for shaping into a strong frame. The choice depended in part on what grew locally. Historical records demonstrate that even within a particular tradition, substitutions could be made when the preferred wood was unavailable.

The webbing required its own knowledge of animal materials and preparation.

This is where two terms commonly encountered in traditional snowshoe construction are worth understanding: babiche and sinew.

Babiche is not the name of a particular animal hide. It refers to cord or lacing made from strips of prepared rawhide. The hide is processed and cut into narrow lengths that can then be worked into webbing.

The animal used for that hide could vary according to location and availability.

Sinew is different. It comes from the strong connective tissue of an animal rather than its skin. Once prepared, sinew can be separated into strong fibres for use as thread or cordage. Historical museum collections sometimes identify sinew alongside hide in traditional snowshoe construction.

The distinction matters because these terms describe different materials rather than different names for the same thing.

In a traditional rawhide snowshoe, the resulting open weave distributes weight without creating a solid platform beneath the foot. Snow can pass through the spaces in the webbing rather than being carried on top with every step.

Leather bindings connect the traveller to the snowshoe while allowing the foot to pivot through the stride.

The result is equipment whose materials and construction are easy to understand and maintain.

Traditional snowshoes have endured because the problem they solve has not changed.

Deep snow still makes winter travel difficult. A tight forest still favours a different shape than open country. The conditions beneath our feet still influence what works best.

Esker’s Canadian-made snowshoes carry those principles forward in equipment intended to be used rather than simply admired.

They can be maintained when they show wear. They can be repaired when something eventually gives way.

Then they can head back into the snow.

Canadian outdoor heritage, made for continued use.