Snowshoe (2) Item Number: E7470-0 from the National Museum of Natural History

Notes

FROM CARD: "7470-1. MODEL --ROUND FRAME; ROUND-POINTED TOE, STRONGLY CURVED UP; BROAD HEEL, TERMINATING IN SHORT, SHARP POINT. NETTING CLOSE AND FINE OF LINE CUT FROM PREPARED DEERSKINS, CALLED BABICHE, ROVE THROUGH FRAME; THAT UNDER FOOT BEING COARSER AND MORE OPEN. PAINTED AND ORNAMENTED WITH LINE OF LARGE BLUE GLASS BEADS ALONG MIDDLE OF NETTING. 7470-L. 23", GREATEST BREADTH 4 1/2". [LOAN] A NATION OF NATIONS 12/75. LOAN RETURNED AUG 1988."Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/9 , retrieved 1-31-2020: These long, teardrop-shaped snowshoes are rounded and upturned at the front ('toe') and pointed at the tail. The frame of each is made from wood, probably willow, joined at the at the tail by a thong and at the toe by a splice that is wrapped with a thong. The sides of the frame are braced apart with three wood cross-bars mortised into the frame. The space for the foot between the foremost bar and the next one back is netted using hide thongs. Fore and aft of those bars is finer and more closely spaced meshing made with thinner thongs, or 'babiche'. Additional thongs attached at the centreline hold sets of ... blue beads. More information here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/65: MacFarlane collected two pairs of snowshoes. They are strikingly similar to snowshoes used by Gwich'in, and may have been copied or traded by the Inuvialuit.