Saturday, December 1, 2007

Snow Shoes


Kind of a delayed post. Over Thanksgiving Break I was in Helena, Montana. I finished my show shoes there, except for the rawhide lacing's.

The first snow shoe is Dogwood from Missoula, but I didn't have another piece of Dogwood, so I had to use willow from where I was at the time. I cut a flexible willow branch with my chert knife, and removed any sticks or switches so I had a nice clean loop. I also cut two cross braces.

Here is the materials I used and one semi-completed snow shoe. I used mule deer buckskin and dogbane cordage to lash the framework together. This particular style can be seen in Man Vs. Wild. I haven't had the chance to test these out, since we haven't had snow deep enough to warrant them.

First, tie the ends together.

Then place the rear cross-brace. I fitted this one to sit in front of my heel. I fitted them to be used with my boots.

Then place the front cross-brace. I positioned these to be below the ball of my foot.

Here are the completed shoes as I'd wear them in use. You can see I haven't laced them with babiche (the rawhide lacing's of a snow shoe). When I encounter deep enough show, I'll demonstrate their use.

I found an interesting video about snow shoes here

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Couldn't see any photos. Which I would love to see. :-D

sam said...

I've really enjoyed reading your bl0g - just came across it via your comment on Torjus' blog. The snow shoes are particularly exciting as they are on my to do list but I'm not keen on the Roycroft ones as they look too cumbersome.

Anonymous said...

Really a wonderful idea to make your own snow shoes.