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Keywords: Snowshoes
Historical Items Showing 3 of 109 View All
Item 14616
Title: Child's snowshoes, Fort Kent, ca. 1920
Contributed by: Fort Kent Historical Society
Date: circa 1920
Location: Fort Kent
Media: wood , leather
Item 79928
Title: Peary snowshoes, Norway, ca. 1905
Contributed by: Norway Historical Society
Date: circa 1905
Location: Norway
Media: photograph
Item 80713
Title: Penobscot snowshoes, ca. 1850
Contributed by: Abbe Museum
Date: circa 1850
Location: Indian Island
Media: ash, hide, sinew
Exhibits Showing 3 of 3 View All
Exhibit
In the early 1600s, French explorers and colonizers in the New World quickly adopted a Native American mode of transportation to get around during the harsh winter months: the snowshoe. Most Northern societies had some form of snowshoe, but the Native Americans turned it into a highly functional item. French settlers named snowshoes "raquettes" because they resembled the tennis racket then in use.
Exhibit
Remembering Mellie Dunham: Snowshoe Maker and Fiddler
Alanson Mellen "Mellie" Dunham and his wife Emma "Gram" Dunham were well-known musicians throughout Maine and the nation in the early decades of the 20th century. Mellie Dunham also received fame as a snowshoe maker.
Exhibit
The astronomical arrival of winter -- also known as the winter solstice -- marks the year's shortest day and the season of snow and cold. It usually arrives on December 21.