When snowshoeing was a popular sport

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/02/2019 (2739 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Snowshoeing once was a major sport in Manitoba. A call-out across the top of the main sports page of the Manitoba Free Press often read “Boxing – Hockey – Football – Snowshoeing – Curling – Ring.”

Snowshoeing race results were reported in the daily papers going back to the 1870s. The La Voyageurs club from St. Boniface was formed in 1875 and the St. George’s club can be traced to the 1880s. According to an 1879 report, C. W. Bell won both a 100-yard dash and a hurdle race, which is difficult to picture on snowshoes.

Snowshoeing wasn’t limited to competitions. Clubs held what were called ‘tramps’ on a regular basis. Members would meet at a designated location in the city and follow a planned route. In January 1911, the union tramp committee organized a big tramp and invited members of various clubs and interested men to sign up. The goal was to have about 300 snowshoers leave the Drill Hall on Broadway where the Legislative Building now is located and embark on a 105-minute tramp that would finish at the Amphitheatre Rink on Colony Street. The committee promised that the evening would end with refreshments and plenty of stories from snowshoers who had been enjoying the sport for decades.

The Manitoba Snowshoes Association was formed in 1910. At the first MSA championships, held in the winter of 1911, Walter Hill won the one-mile challenge cup race and the championship trophy donated by the Hudson’s Bay Co. K.C. Blair, better known as a track runner, won the 100-yard dash. M. Riley, described as “a promising young and swift runner on the shoes,” took the half-mile trophy.

Before the 1912 championships, scheduled for February, the association encouraged involvement in the sport through following statement in the Manitoba Free Press:

“It is a regrettable fact that many of our city workers know nothing of the delights of the open country when winter covers the land with his white carpet. To only those men and women who tramp the bush  and river trails… is known the truly healthful delights of our winter season… It is impossible to describe in words but the exclamations, the expressions of surprise, the shouts and songs of the participants are just reflections of the snowshoers’ happy feelings.”

As often happens to outdoor sports in Winnipeg as winter winds down, weather conditions affected the planned championships. The committee was forced to cancel the competition after vainly searching for a good stretch of snow on the Red River. In February 1915, when Winnipeg hosted the Dominion championships on the Red River, Ed Riley, likely that promising young runner mentioned in 1911, won gold in the half mile.

In addition to La Voyageurs and St. George’s, the Winnipeg Canoe Club, the YMCA, St. Matthews, Alpha, Aurora, Cheerhako, Holly and Westminster had snowshoeing groups and Young Church ran a club for youths.

A 1911 advertisement for the Hingston-Smith Arms Co. Ltd. on Main Street priced snowshoes for surveyors, lumbermen, trappers, and sportsmen as well ladies’ and children’s shoes at $1.75 a pair and up. By 1935, Eaton’s was offering first-grade snowshoes for youngsters and up from $1.95 to $5.95 a pair.

In 1924, the Greater Winnipeg Sports Carnival at River Park featured a variety of snowshoe events. Along with races, they included a tug-of-war, snowshoe hockey, volleyball, fence jumping and horseback wrestling with snowshoes.

In 1939, in response to a report that the U.S. Army had been training on snowshoes at Fort Snelling, Minn., the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in Winnipeg advised that they had been training in skirmishing and tactical exercises on snowshoes for 10 years.   

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com