Snowy Mountains

 An entry for Sepia Saturday. "Using old images as prompts for new reflections".

These shoes aren't made for walking...

 Tyrrell Photographic Collection, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia

The "Start of the Girls Snowshoe Race, Kiandra".  Date unknown but taken by Charles Kerry who was the official photographer to the governor of New South Wales and a keen skier who captured many images of skiing and life around Kiandra from 1885 (when the first races for men and women took place) to 1905. However here we have the girls, the woman to the left looks older perhaps a teacher or an official. The girls look pretty relaxed I think the younger ones might have an advantage with the shorter skirts however the older girl (2nd left) has technology, a pole which was used for braking and turning.  My money is on the girl with no gloves and a bonnet, no encumbrances. Are you thinking those are not snowshoes but skis?  What's in a name, the Australians at this time called them snowshoes. 

Kiandra in the Snowy Mountains of SE Australia was the scene of the 1800s gold rush when the miners strapped planks to their boots forming a sort of Norwegian snow shoe and from this the Kiandra Snowshoe Club was formed in 1861 making it the oldest continuous ski club in the world.  Today it still exists as the Kiandra Pioneers Ski Club and celebrated its 150th anniversary last year.

But I don't want to disappoint with no pictures of the true snowshoe, and a climate more associated with them

 Photograph by Frederick W Waugh, Canadian Museum of Civilization

Canada.  An Inuit women wearing a hunting costume in 1921-22.  The snowshoes are made by the Innu (Naskapi).  The root of the word Naskapi means the "ones who live past the horizon".  Their home is Labrador and Northern Quebec.   The Arctic frontier, the all in one shoe a necessity.

Update: I originally thought this was a Naskapi (Innu) women but from Anthony, a blog commenter, learned that only the snowshoes are of that origin and the woman was in fact Inuit.  Fascinating that different styles of snowshoes are traded. Never having every worn a pair I do not know their advantage (or if it is just like wanting a different pair of shoes), but if I ever make it to the Canadian north I'll certainly give them a try. By coincidence I saw some indigenous equipment from the Inuit of Canada at  the British Museum in January, I'll be back down in London briefly later in the year so I will have to call in to satisfy my curiosity of the difference.        

Nunavik = Northern Quebec and Nunatsiavut = Northern Labrador.