Of materials moosehide is popularly associated with moccasins. It does
not pretend to be waterproof but it is very durable and provides the
softest, lightest, and most comfortable footwear made. A pair weighs but
a few ounces and rolls up in a small compass, so an extra pair can be
nicely tucked away in a corner of the pack. Even if a man wears shoes
during the day a pair of moccasins should be taken along for a restful
change of wear about the evening camp fire. Moosehide and elkskin are at
present hard to procure hence the names are mainly trade terms.
Discriminating sportsmen can get the genuine moosehide cruising packs
from the Putnam Company, Minneapolis. For our purpose the oil tanned
pack of cowhide is more easily procurable and superior for general use
to the moosehide article. It can be kept pliable and a semblance to
being waterproof by the application of animal oils.
The shoe-pack is a boot shaped like a moccasin but with a higher top.
Either is preferable to a shoe for tramping because of their lightness
and softness to the feet. The upper should be high enough to make the
total pack height about ten inches.
No matter what footwear you choose you should provide for the wearing of
one or two pairs of heavy wool socks into whose tops are tucked the
pants leg, thus doing away with leggings. This may sound paradoxical to
the tenderfoot. The idea of housing the feet in summertime in heavy wool
socks! The notion nevertheless is based on experience. The thick are no
hotter on the feet than the thin. It is the leather that keeps the heat
in. Wool equalizes the moisture evaporation. If your work forces you
into wet places the temperature is modified. One can fish standing in
very cold water and not suffer. A sportsman can spend several weeks in
an almost normal condition of wet feet without suffering, even in mild
fall weather, since his wool socks keep his feet warm in spite of the
wet and cold. Where one perspires freely on dry tramping the
perspiration is taken up from the skin and transmitted by the wool
fibers to the outside of the sock where it is more easily evaporated.
In the coldest weather the feet are always warm when covered with heavy
wool socks and moccasins and it is the only successful combination for
use in snowshoes. For common tramping they are ideal, for the constant
exposure of the feet to the wet is to be anticipated and the thickness
of the wool softens the shock and pressure of foot work on rough trails,
diminishing the danger of friction and impact. In fitting shoes or
moccasins over your heavy wool socks allow a half size larger in length
and two letters in width over your street shoe. Even then your foot
covering will be about three times the bulk of your tight fashion-plate
town footwear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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