210 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

very considerable difference between the curves of the inner and of the outer
sides. It is from three to four and a half feet long, with an average width of
thirteen inches.

Fig. 57 represents one of my own snow-shoes, a fair specimen, I think,
of the latest style of what is commonly known as the Hudson Bay snow-shoe.
The Carriers call it fe-ttu, “stitched together’, by allusion to the peculiar
form of its head, and because the fore-ends of the two side sticks must have
originally been united by means of stitches of babiche. Nowadays small nails
or screws are more commonly used in that connection. To add to the grace-
fulness of the front and prevent it from shrinking in, a fourth bar is inserted
some distance from the point, and the resulting tension corrected by a trans-
versal cord which binds fast the extremities of the two sticks. The ground
netting, which is as usual of fine babiche, passes under both cord and bar.
Little tufts of coloured yarn issuing from each side of the frame are intended

Fig. 57.

to enhance the elegance of the implement. Both shoes fit either right or left
foot. Length, about four feet.

In the west, the side sticks of the snow-shoes are generally of black
spruce or of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga Douglassii), but those of the mountain
maple (Acer glabrum) or of mountain ash (Pyrus Americana) are more esteemed.
In all cases the cross-bars are, as a rule, of willow or birch. The latter material
serves to make the frame of the Loucheux and of the Chippewayan snow-
shoes, while the Rocky Mountain model is more often of pine wood.

Snow-Shoeing.

In the far north, the Dénés of the Great Bear Lake basin generally use
consecutively snow-shoes of a slightly varying make. After having worn the
common, close-meshed, hunting snow-shoe till some time in February or
March, as soon as the surface of the snow gets hard and crusty, they undo
the netting of their footgear and fill the frame with a coarse lashing with
square and large meshes, resulting in what they now call the reindeer snow-
shoe. But, a month later, when the snow is melting, this is in its turn dis-
carded for “swan snow-shoes”, a small variety which they will use until the
appearance of the first swan flocks}.

* Cf. Petitot, Exploration du Grand Lac des Curs, pp. 205—206.