Snowshoe
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Snowshoe. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a contrivance for walking on snow without sinking. The toes of the prairie chicken, the partridge, the rabbit, the lynx, and many other wild animals are provided with spreading, horny flanges, hair, bristles, or thick fur that enables these inhabitants of cold countries to run or leap on soft snow without sinking. Taking a hint from them, the northern woodsman constructs a pair of snowshoes for the same purpose. A strip of strong, flexible wood is bent into the shape of an ellipse, round in front and prolonged somewhat in the rear. Thongs of rawhide, perhaps half an inch in width, are passed back and forth at intervals of two and three inches, care being taken to interweave them in such a way as to form a sort of web, strengthened by a single crosspiece of wood. The entire contrivance is not unlike a large tennis racket with the handle cut off. It is from a foot to a foot and one-half in width and about three feet in length, and is fastened to the foot by a thong passing over the toe of the wearer's moccasin, thus leaving his heel free to rise. In walking, the woodsman lifts the toe of the shoe slightly and slides it along the snow, then advances the other shoe in like manner. With a pair of good shoes one can walk over fresh snow without inconvenience. Those who have become experts in their use can overtake a deer as it flounders along through the deep snow, and can travel with speed and safety across leagues of country through which it would be impossible to pass without aid. In Canada and the northern parts of the United States , snowshoe racing has become a popular form of winter sport. For an account of the wooden snowshoe, see SKI.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a light frame made of bent wood and interlacing thongs, used FRAME TAIL tread of the shoe is formed of strips of raw-hide, hard twisted twine, or, among the Indians, of deer-sinews. In use the toe is placed beneath the strap and the foot rests on the thongs; as the heel rises in walking, the snow shoe is not raised, but as the foot is lifted, the toe elevates the forward end of the snowshoe, which is then dragged along on the snow as the leg is advanced. They are usually from three to four feet in length, and a foot to 18 inches broad in the middle. See SKI.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The bent ash frame laced with rawhide thongs that Aiton's described in 1910 is now a craft object rather than standard equipment: since roughly the 1970s and 1980s most snowshoes have been made with tubular aluminium or moulded plastic frames and solid decks of nylon or neoprene, fitted with steel crampons under the toe for grip on hard snow and ice. They are also far smaller than the three- to four-foot shoes Collier's measured in 1921, since modern users mostly walk packed trails rather than break trail through deep powder. The walking technique and the free-rising heel are unchanged, and snowshoe racing survives as Aiton's noted, though running deer down on snow, described admiringly in 1910, is now prohibited as a hunting method in most of Canada and the United States.
Written for this edition, 2026.