Talk:Snowshoe/Archives/2013

Interesting picture and problems with Origins section
This page has an interesting picture of a rock carving from 4200-1800 BC of a man with snowshoes:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=no&tl=en&u=http://www.alta.museum.no/sider/tekst.asp%3Fside%3D66%26valgtmenypunkt%3D59

The field with the carvings is in Northern Norway (interestingly enough skiing is often assumed to have been "invented" by the native people of that area). This makes the following statement in the Origins section dubious: "Two groups of snowshoe pioneers diverged early on, setting patterns that can still be seen today. One group abandoned the snowshoe as it migrated north to what is now Scandinavia, eventually turning the design into the forerunners of the Nordic ski. The other went northeast, eventually crossing the Bering Strait into North America.[citation needed]" Labongo (talk) 22:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, turns out that five years ago I was the guilty party, during my expansion of this article. As my edit summary indicated, I believe it was in one of my guidebooks or something that I used as a source (Back then, in the mammoth-hunting-with-spears era of Wikipedia, we didn't have to cite things, which is why I didn't, so now we don't know which source it was). Daniel Case (talk) 01:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Sizes and vintages
Regarding current usage (including this article) I've come to the conclusoin that 99% of snowshoe use is in snow not so deep that it absolutely requires snowshoes. I have 6 pairs of various types and take week logn trips in Canada where there is 3' of powder. The small snowshoes shoes don't work in that for for even light people. Regarding article content, two (that I didn't want to just mess with) come to mind. One is that while I'm sure that the standard of 1 sq. in per pound of weight came from a real source, such certainly is far off for really deep snow where I usually operate with double that (2 sq. in per pound) and still sink in 8". Would be nice to find more on this.   Second is where it says that nobody uses the "old fashioned" ones any more. With the disappearance of the Sherpas, the only big one's I've seen are the "old fashioned ones"  and folks who really need them in deep snow often use those. The article partially conflicts with itself in this area, saying that many snowshoers prefer wood frames.    Not that I would suggest adding anything based on what I said, but we might keep an eye out for sourced material in these areas and possibly take out unsourced material where it seems wrong.  Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:25, 13 March 2012 (UTC)