Chapter 18 - Recreation
A Snowshoe By Any Other Name
is A Raquette
Snowshoes are as much a part of the history of the Mohawk Valley
as are canoes, castles and quartz crystals. Indians used them to travel
and hunt in deep snow. Trappers used them to search for beaver and other
fur bearers. Settlers used them to travel from isolated homesteads to gristmills
and sawmills. And armies used them to control the "valley through the mountains."
In the 1600s a French army traveled on snowshoes to attack
Mohawk castles and the Dutch village of Schenectady in the dead of winter.
After one of these attacks, they abandoned hundreds of worn out "raquettes"
beside a river in the Adirondacks that is to this day called Raquette River.
For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, snowshoes
remained essentially the same, consisting of rounded wooden frames
latticed with rawhide to create "webbed" feet for man to walk on snow.
Today, snowshoes are made in a variety of forms with a variety of materials.
There are snowshoes for deep snow, medium-packed snow and packed snow.
There are snowshoes for touring and snowshoes for racing.
I've been snowshoeing the woods, fields and lakes
of Central New York for almost 40 years. I've tried some of the newer models,
but prefer the time-tested, modified---upturned toe and short tail---bear
paw design, latticed with neoprene. They provide the support I need and
snow doesn't stick to the neoprene, one of the drawbacks of rawhide.
Each year I re-discover the joys of snowshoeing.
Most of my snowshoeing adventures are near my home in West Canada Valley.
I hike through open fields and wooded hillsides on rough cut trails and
logging roads. Depending on the depth of the snow and my energy level,
these walks consist of: 2, 3, 4 and 5-mile loops.
Discovery: Hiking The Snowy
Woods
January 7, 2001, 16 degrees, 9 a.m., snow showers with some sun.
Today is my first day on snowshoes this winter. After two miles of
trudging through fields and woods in two feet of snow, and sinking 6-8
inches even with snowshoes, I yelled at the top of my lungs . . . "I love
winter!"
Crazy but true. The winter woods were so beautiful
and quiet. Almost everything was covered with snow. All I could hear
were the snowshoes sinking in the snow and the dogs panting. That
is until a flock of turkeys feeding on a hillside started talking . . .
what else . . . turkey.
A gray squirrel was having such a tough time getting
through the snow, even 13+ year old Doolie thought he had a chance to catch
it. Both dogs gave it a try, but O'l Gray made it to a tree and then it
was tree-to-tree all the way to safety.
Didn't see any deer, but their trails in the deep
snow criss-crossed my trail. If this snow and cold keeps up, it will be
a tough year for deer. The deep snow makes mice hunting difficult for coyotes,
so they seem to be concentrating on rabbits. I've found a number of
kills this past week. When the cottontails get scarce, the coyotes will
be attacking deer. No matter, we have way too many deer in this area.
I just can't get over how much I like snowshoeing
in the winter woods. Of course, tomorrow morning when I feel leg muscles
that haven't been used since last winter, I may feel differently.
January 8, 2001, 20 degrees, 9:30 a.m., very gray, but not
snowing.
My legs didn't ache as much as I thought they would. Dismal day though.
With yesterday's packed trail and only a couple inches of new snow, I hiked
three miles.
It didn't start well. Five minutes into the hike,
the right snowshoe came off.. Thought I had adjusted them properly
yesterday. Kneeling on the opposite knee; tighten here, loosen there, to
keep the shoe on and provide room for my boot to move freely in the toe-hole.
Ten minutes later, the other snowshoe came off. Repeat adjustment. Maybe
I don't like snowshoeing as much as I thought I did. Doolie and Cedar
urged me onward.
Deer tracks run the length of my packed trail. Turkeys
still talking on the hillside. A half dozen take off from the ground near
the trail, fly further up the hill and run towards the top; heads just
visible above the snow.
On the way back. Snowing hard. Traveling a different
route. More turkey talk. Then one of the most impressive sights I've seen
in the winter woods. As we moved down the trail, a flock of more than 50
turkeys left their treetop roosts . . . but not all at once. As we
moved forward, turkeys---wingtips hitting branches, pushing air---flew
overhead one or two at a time. They didn't seem to mind the dogs, but when
I got close they were off. Some disappeared from view, others landed on
treetops further down the hill.
On the downhill side of a sweeping bend in
the logging road is a stand of small hemlocks. As I approached this red
squirrel haven, some 20 turkeys erupted from under those trees. The sight
and sound was awesome. Huge black birds, wings outstretched, pumping
hard, gaining altitude, against the backdrop of trees and falling snow.
Sounded like a huge gust of wind.
UPDATE: Subsequent hikes revealed that the turkeys were not roosting in trees, they were in fact feeding on beech nuts that clung to tree-top branches. That's the first time I've seen turkeys feeding in the trees.
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