Snow-shoeing disputes with tobogganing the honour of being Canada’s national winter sport; for although snow-shoes have been seen in Siberia and Tartary, and are used to some extent in Scandinavia, in none of these places do the people derive much amusement from them. Simple as the snow-shoe seems, I would not advise any one to try to make a pair for himself. Only the Indians can do this really well, and even in Canada the vast majority of shoes are put together by dusky hands. This is how they make a shoe of three feet six inches, which is a fair average size:—A piece of light ash about half-an-inch thick, and at least ninety inches in length, is bent to a long oval until the two ends touch, when they are lashed strongly together with catgut. Two strips of tough wood about an inch broad are then fitted across this frame, one being placed about five inches from the curving top, the other some twenty inches from the tapering end. The object of these strips is to give both strength and spring to the shoe. The three sections into which the interior of the frame has thus been divided are then woven across with catgut, each having a different degree of fineness in the mesh, the top section being very fine, the middle section, upon which almost the whole strain comes, coarse and strong, and the end section a medium grade between the other two. The gut in the middle section is wound right around the framework for the sake of greater strength, but in the other two is threaded through holes bored at intervals of an inch or so. Just behind the front cross-bar an opening about four inches square is left in the gut netting, in order to allow free play for the toes in lifting the shoe at each step. Both wood and gut must be thoroughly seasoned, or else the one will warp, and the other stretch and sag until the shoe is altogether useless. The shoes are made in many shapes and of many sizes, ranging from two to six feet in length, and from ten to twenty inches in breadth. But for all practical purposes a shoe measuring three feet six inches by twelve or fifteen inches is the best. In racing, narrower shoes are used, but they rarely go below ten inches, that being the regulation measurement for club competitions. Then, again, some snow-shoes are turned up in front like tiny toboggans, instead of being flat, this kind being worn principally by ladies.