Snowshoes are made of a single strip of some tough wood, usually hickory, curved round and fastened together at the ends and supported in the middle by a light cross-bar, the space within the frame thus made being filled with a close webbing of dressed caribou or neat's-hide strips, leaving a small opening just behind the cross-bar for the toe of the moccasined[?] foot. They are fastened to the moccasin by leather thongs, sometimes by buckles[?]. The method of walking is to lift the shoes slightly and slide the overlapping inner edges over each other, thus avoiding the unnatural and fatiguing "straddle-gait" that would otherwise be necessary. Immoderate snow-shoeing leads to serious lameness of the feet and ankles which the Canadian voyageurs call ma! de raquette. Snowshoe racing is very common in the Canadian snowshoe clubs, and one of the events is a hurdle-race over hurdles ~ ft. 6 in. high. Owing to the thick forests of America the snow-shoe has been found to be more suitable for use than the Norwegian ski, which is, however, much used in the less-wooded districts.
from a 1911 encyclopedia
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