They may look like tennis rackets strapped to ones feet, but many anthropologists believe that the existence of snowshoes goes back as far as the migration of the earliest human settlers to Canada.
The history of the snowshoe has its place today as well, as later European families coming to Canada also lacked the hunting knowledge required for the colder climate. Moreover, the furs they wished to supply Europe with were thickest during winter when snow was much deeper. Because of this, the fur business came to rely on snowshoes and the knowledge of Aboriginal people who had been trapping and transporting goods by snowshoes for thousands of years. If not for these alliances, and for the sharing of traditional tools such as the snowshoe, Europeans would likely not have survived and the settlement of Canada would have unfolded much differently, if at all. (ref: www.canadianicons.ca)
These snowshoes were made by Emerson and Alice Copp at their home near Riverside Albert, and were used in Fundy National Park from 1978 to 1981. They are on display at the museum in our Winter Exhibition.