Walking on Thin Ice,' the ice-sledge, and the ice-scrapers: which are like those described by Ongtching in 1774 as dug out of the ice, with a knife, and of the thickness of a walking-staff. This instrument consists of a staff covered with a strong sieve-work. The ends are fitted to the feet, and the sieve-work prevents the feet from being cut by the edges of the ice."
"The Ice-Shoe or Inch-Depth is said to have been used to travel rapidly over ice in which men could not stand up. It was not an ice-scraper, as it was the whole foot that was used to press on the surface. It was, moreover, of another shape, and when men wore them ice-sledges are not mentioned as worn. On the other hand, if ice-scraper and ice-sledge are regarded as equivalents, ice-shoe must mean ice-scraper."
"It seems to have been quite usual for many people to wear shoes, or stockings, in the summer; and this fact points to an interesting conclusion, which has been already suggested, viz.: that ice-sledge and ice-shoe are synonymous, the latter having, perhaps, been merely a larger and more massive kind of the former."
"Another class of runners were known as the Iron-bound, which must mean simply that the soles were made of iron and were fastened on by a wooden sole, with nails, as in a shoe. In this case the sole was made of wood, with iron nails, fastened to the bottom of the foot."
"It was no doubt usual to put straw between the toes and also as padding in the lower part of the foot, which would further protect the feet from the sharp edges of the ice. As the ice moved under them, the ice-shoep would have to be walked off again, and it would not do to remove the ice-shoep unless a suitable place was found on which to fasten it again. It must be considered that ice-shoes have only been used for travelling purposes; and all that was necessary for fastening them was a wooden sole with nails, into which the ice-shoep-holes were bored; and as they were fastened by means of pegs and a leather thong or rope, their use was equally applicable to sea and fresh water. It is obvious, therefore, that they must have been constructed with greater size in the land ice than in ice with salt water. With iron nails and wood they could last long on land ice. It seems hardly possible that they should be worn on sea ice, with the waves up to the knees, as is done by the natives of Southern Africa. This style of foot-gear would be useless for travelling on the flat parts of ice, but must have been used to travel over the hummocks in land ice. In all countries in which ice-shoep were used, they have been found in the same condition in which the snow shoes are now found, i. e., in a great majority of cases, they have left the marks of the wooden sole and nails which held them, as shown by Schwatka in Arctic Alaska, and by myself in the Polar regions. I have had frequent opportunity to observe the use of these ice-shoep, on a number of occasions in the ice-covered lakes and ponds of Canada, while the ice-shoep would be absolutely useless for any other purpose than for travelling on ice, and, therefore, the question of their being an adaptation made by man for the use of the ice in winter does not require discussion. The evidence of a number of observations and experiments now goes to show that the ice-shoep would serve the purpose of travelling on ice with an equal amount of difficulty in land ice as in ice with salt water.
The shoes or sandals which are seen to have been worn in very cold and even during the winters in England in the year 1845, under snow and ice, were made of wood, and had nails on the inside, so as to keep the wooden sole and shoe together, and they were not fastened to the feet. A writer in the Nautical Magazine says: "The wooden sandals are of two kinds, one having nails fastened on the inside of the wooden sole, which can be readily released, and then turned inside out and fastened on again. The other type has the nails driven in obliquely; these may also be easily unfastened when they have been worn out, and turned inside out as before, and fastened on again."
"If it be considered that the people who used the wooden sandals must have spent much time in walking in the snow and ice, the inference is that the wooden sole was at least capable of carrying the wearer over the snow and ice with equal facility, with a wooden foot-plate and nails with which they were provided. The same writer states that an officer had a pair made of sealskin, which had been found to be capable of holding the feet, and were found to keep the feet cool and dry in the snow; but I should think that these too must have been fastened to the feet by means of a sole, as they were found in Greenland and Spitzbergen, and as we know that the use of them was for marching in snow or ice. In regard to the nails on the wooden soles, if these were used, it is more than probable that they were removed before walking in snow or on ice, as the nails would cut the toes."
These wooden shoes may very possibly have been the ones which were of the same kind as those described by Hibbert (Archæological Review, 1870). Hibbert, in reference to a wooden shoe of that period, says: "The soles of the shoes were broad, and about two inches thick; they had iron studs in the form of nails, and, if they walked on a hard road, all the nails would be covered, thus forming a solid flat surface, with which they always kept a firm footing. The holes were made about an inch apart, and the lacing laced through them."
And, from the same article, he adds: "The wood used for this purpose was of different kinds of oak, and much resembles oak which has been used for flooring purposes in public buildings in towns in this country."
Mr. C. C. Parr says in the Nautical Magazine, October, 1894: "That wood was used as a sole for men's shoes is proved by the fact that I found a pair in the ice, which I examined in the Museum of Stockholm. The sole is made of elmwood, fastened together with iron nails, as shown by the holes left in the wood."
To sum up, then, in regard to the wooden soles and nails of snow shoes and shoes used on sea ice, they are not simply made use of as a means of walking over rough ice, but for the same object as ice-shoep in land ice, and they have been found in Greenland. They have the same use, and are still used in Spitzbergen, where I have found them, and no doubt are still used in Norway and Russia in the polar regions, as they would serve equally well on land ice.
"Ice-sledges, or to say more exactly, ice-scraper-shoes, are not mentioned in the Arctic voyages, except as being used by a few sailors in Arctic waters. They are mentioned as such by Barrow, as having been seen by him on the Frozen Ocean; but, as he speaks of them under a different name, viz., sledge, they may have been made of wood. This same writer, however, says that the sailors who lived on the north side of the Cape of Good Hope wore shoes. It must be presumed that these would have had no other use but to walk on land ice."
"In the Arctic voyage of Cook (2) and the expedition of Ross (6), no mention is made of shoes, though in the former case it was a matter of indifference. Captain Fitzroy mentions a number of officers and men having worn shoes in his voyage to the Antarctic regions. When we consider the nature of the ice in those regions, and the fact that the sailors' shoes in the Arctic regions wore out and their soles were destroyed, it would, therefore, be difficult to conceive that shoes could have been worn to any greater extent on the Antarctic side of the Pole. No doubt the men of that time wore shoes when they were not at work on ship-work or in the fields, and hence it was said that there was not much difference between living on land and living on the ice. There may have been ice-sledges or sledges similar to those which we use now in Greenland and Spitzbergen, in which shoes are worn by everyone on the land."
"It seems certain that a few wooden shoes had been found in Greenland
