Snowshoeing - an ancient, enjoyable pastime

BY ED COLEMAN

Kings County Register

When gigantic snowdrifts paralyzed the entire Valley during the great blizzard of 1905, it’s on record, for over a month-and-a-half, postal courier John Murphy trekked twice a week on snowshoes from Kentville to New Ross to deliver mail.

That’s quite a feat.

To accomplish it, Murphy had to be in superb physical condition. Trudging around on snowshoes doesn’t look hard, but walking any distance on them, especially in deep snow, demands stamina. Snowshoeing may look easy; but since all kinds of muscles we normally don’t use much are called into play and walking is done with a kind of quirky gait, you tire quickly if you’re not used to it.

My 16-year-old grandson quickly discovered this when we took off on a snowshoe trek on the dykes earlier this winter. Sam can run up and down the soccer pitch all night without breaking much of a sweat but, after trekking around for an hour on snowshoes, he was glad to take a break. He wasn’t exactly gasping, but he wasn’t long in getting his water bottle out.

As well as discovering his grandfather had a bit of a physical edge when it came to snowshoeing, Sam learned several things while we were on the dykes. Snowshoeing creates the opportunity for intimate observations of snowlocked dykes and woodlands. For the snowshoer, the winter expanse is a book, open to be read if the inclination is there to study its pages.

While snowshoeing, Sam and I found the tracks of various dykeland creatures. Crossing corn stubbles, we saw the tracks of pheasants, crows and ducks. By a partially open brook, we found mink tracks. Coyote tracks were everywhere. We had the opportunity, rare on the dykes in broad daylight, of spotting a coyote as it bounded out of a ditch. It was a dingy brown specimen that looked scrawny and undernourished, but we welcomed its sight with shouts.

In a way, I was hoping to convince my grandson to get the snowshoe habit. While they may be a distant second in popularity to cross country skies, there’s much to be said for this ancient method of winter travel.

For one thing, snowshoes are more suitable for exploring the winter forest than skis. The more rugged the terrain, the denser the woods: the more useful they are. Unlike the cross country skier, the snowshoer can explore the rocky, primeval ravines; the hidden glens and the dense evergreen stands and see much more of nature close at hand.

By snowshoeing with my grandson, by the way, we were carrying on a tradition that has been part of the Canadian winter for as long as man has been here. Snowshoes undoubtedly came to Canada with the first Indians, but no one is sure where they originated. Natives of mountain areas in Asia have folk tales countless generations old that mention snowshoes, and Eskimos of the Canadian North have similar stories.

Whatever their origin, snowshoes are ideal for winter recreation and are exceptionally good for toning up winter-weary bodies. And, if you’re one of those people who like to experience what winter is like in the fields and woods, they’re good for that as well.