Bill Novacek’s first job out of high school was at a sawmill in the Berkshires. In 1981, he moved north to Coos County in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where his connection to wood – and the woods – remains strong. For the past three decades, he has been the proprietor of Coos Canoe & Snowshoe. Although he no longer builds wooden canoes, he uses wood and rawhide to craft dozens of pairs of traditional snowshoes each year.
I was engaged in the outdoors early on. I was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, out in the Berkshires. I had the Green Mountains behind my house and woods all the way up to Canada. The Appalachian Trail went right through my neighbors’ yard. We did a lot of hiking, my brother and I. We went camping a lot. We rode our bikes up Mt. Greylock and back once, and we camped up there quite a few times. North Adams was a fairly good sized city, but there was plenty of woods all around it. I wasn’t interested in much in town – I was more interested in being out in the woods and outdoors.
When I got to be 18, I moved up onto the Mohawk Trail just east of North Adams. I built a cabin on land at an elevation of 2,300 feet. We got a lot of snow up there, and I needed a pair of snowshoes. My father gave me a pair of nice wooden snowshoes. I loved snowshoeing, and I loved building things, and I figured I should make some snowshoes. I tried several times to make a pair of snowshoes and had very little success. The wood kept splintering and breaking. My dad happened to give me a Fine Woodworking magazine. He just thought I might like to read it. And in that magazine was a small article, written by Henry Vaillancourt, about making traditional snowshoes. That had all the tips in it that I was missing. From there I took off.
I’m still in the school of hard knocks as far as learning to make snowshoes. I still learn something interesting every year. I probably make anywhere from 30 to 50 pairs of snowshoes or more each year. Usually, it’s people in traditional occupations who buy them. There are a lot of foresters and conservation officers in this area who have my shoes, as well as people out in the Midwest.
Traditional snowshoes are kind of a whole different animal than metal snowshoes. The metal shoes have cleats all over them; you have to have cleats or you ski on them rather than walk on them. As a result, it’s a totally different action as you’re moving along, a totally different form of travel. With a traditional snowshoe, you can just slide your foot forward, much the same as when you’re walking, as long as you have a pair that’s not too wide for you. With the metal shoes, you have to kind of pick your feet up and stomp. It’s just not as pleasant a way to travel. You can cover a lot more territory on a pair of traditional shoes, because you’re just sliding your foot forward. It’s kind of like a cross between skiing and walking. You can go almost anywhere if there’s a decent snowpack and it’s been cold – as long as it’s not real steep and icy.
The traditional shoes are more pleasant to use. They tend to give you more flotation, because they tend to be bigger. And they look a lot nicer when they’re hanging on the wall when you’re not using them. They’re also biodegradable. And they’re made by a craftsman, rather than on an assembly line. I do make a cleat that goes on the front cross piece. That provides enough traction to assist you if you’re going up something steep or if you’re pulling a toboggan.
I make snowshoe harnesses as well, to attach your foot to the shoe. Native Americans used to use – and some still do – a buckskin thong, a piece of buckskin leather. That is a very ingenious, very simple way of attaching the snowshoe to your foot. But that works best with a soft shoe, so a mukluk or a moccasin. If it’s a hard-toed shoe or boot, that doesn’t work as well. The harness is critical. If people don’t like the harness, they won’t like snowshoeing. I have a couple different styles of harnesses, and they seem to make most people happy. I make them out of leather, there’s a nylon toe strap, a stainless steel buckle. They’re relatively simple.
I usually begin the process of making snowshoes in late winter. I cut the trees and harvest the logs in late winter. I get them into the back of my pickup, bring them home, and pile them up next to my sawmill. When it starts to get warmer, I start working on the rawhide. I salt the hides down after hunting season. I have 46 deer hides from this past hunting season. I put a sign out front by the road that I buy deer hides, and I usually get the same people year after year to sell hides. I usually get a moose hide or two as well. I purchase some cow hide from tanneries, and that’s probably about half of my rawhide supply. As it gets warmer, I start working on them outdoors, getting the hair off them. After they’re all cleaned up, I nail them up in the sun to dry, then roll them up and label them and stack them. You don’t need to use any chemicals. The only thing I use is lye to help strip the hair off neatly. It helps keep the smell down and the flies down.
In summertime, I put the logs on my portable mill and saw them into staves and bend them into snowshoe frames. After they’ve been on the mold for a week or more, I fasten them together and block the toes so they keep their shape. Then I label them and hang them up in the barn where they can season for a few months. By that time, it’s getting to be fall, and I start tying the snowshoes. By the time winter is here, I have enough snowshoes to keep people happy.
I used to make wooden canoes, but I don’t do that anymore. I’ve found as I get older that life is easier and simpler if you don’t try to do too many things. And you do a much better job if you don’t spread yourself too thin. Canoes are extremely fun to make. I love using the canoes, too. You use many of the same principles of bending wood for both canoes and snowshoes. Aside from reading the books on making canoes, I learned by trial and error, just as with the snowshoes. You learn a lot when you take something old apart, or you repair something. You can see what patterns they used, what technique. You can see where the weak points were, why something failed, and you can do something to circumvent that.
I’ve also been making furniture since 1999. I have the first chair I ever made right in front of me here. I might be able to make a living just making snowshoes, but the furniture sells a little here and a little there all year long. It’s nice stuff. It’s very beautiful to look at. It doesn’t get worn out. It’s light. I use probably the larger percentage of my deer hides on the furniture. Deer hide looks better on the furniture than the cow hide. I also use moose hide, which has a darker look to it, more of a nutty brown. I think most of the people who order moose hide just like the idea of having something made out of moose hide. I love making baskets, too, and I have made and sold pack baskets, but I’ve limited myself. Like I said, you can only do so many things.
Ash is the best wood for making snowshoes, as far as I’m concerned. It tends to bend better than most woods. It grows relatively straight. It’s relatively light and strong. So it has all the characteristics that are best for snowshoes. But you can use other woods. Any of the birches work well, golden birch – or yellow birch – being the best. Maple also works well, although I’ve had very limited experience with it. Oak will bend well, too, and hickory, but they tend to be heavier.
I do have a woodlot, but it doesn’t have very much in the way of ash. I have a neighbor up the street who owns several hundred acres, and he lives on that piece of land, which has been in the family for a long time. We have kind of a symbiotic relationship. He doesn’t have any type of machinery to cut his trees with, and he burns wood for heat. I have an old cable skidder, and after I’m done with my firewood supply, I go up and cut his. He lets me take what I want of ash, because he has lots of beautiful ash. I pick out which ones I think will bend well, and which ones to put in his firewood pile. I burn about 8 cords in a year. He’ll burn as much as I cut. He has a big family, and his kids come and get whatever wood he doesn’t use. I think last year I cut between 12 and 15 cords for him.
I have a portable sawmill, mainly for my own use. I tend to have a surplus of wood after I use what I need. There are parts of the log that aren’t good for snowshoes, and I turn that into lumber, and every once in a while, I find someone who’s looking for lumber, and I sell it to them.
We have plentiful ash now, but I’ve been told that in five years it’s not going to look this way. I’m 64, and I’m planning to retire when I’m 70, but I will make snowshoes as long as I’m able to. If the ash goes, I’m planning to switch over to using golden birch – or yellow birch, whichever you prefer to call it. That’s not quite as plentiful, but it’s still plentiful enough. It does bend fairly well. It isn’t as strong as ash, so I would make my frames 1/16 of an inch thicker. The Native snowshoe makers in Northern Quebec use golden birch a lot, and they use white birch as well.
I love getting out in the woods. I used to hunt when I was younger, but I don’t hunt anymore. I’m not as much of a meat eater anymore, and I’m certainly not going to go through all that trouble to kill something if I’m not going to eat it. My wife and I go canoe camping every summer. Lake Umbagog is one of our favorite places. There’s nothing like camping on the water and hearing the loons all night long. And we hike often. Where we live out in east Lancaster, we’re hard up against the mountains. Mount Starr King is one direction, Mount Cabot is right behind me, so there’s plenty of nice hiking in this area. It’s nice to get out away from everything.
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