Imagine that you are part of an ancient civilization in around 4000 BCE in the middle of the wilderness. You’re part of a group that is trying to hunt for food and the snow that is piled high is making it very difficult to walk. The animals you’re trying to hunt are getting away and your group is getting more and more hungry.

 Suddenly someone in your pack is like “Hey, what if we put some wood under our feet so we can be on top of the snow more instead of sinking down?” And thus, the first snowshoes are born. In the beginning snowshoes were basically just flat pieces of wood under the feet but they were a massive travel upgrade.

The concept is that by making the foot cover a larger surface, the pressure on the snow is lower, so each step stays on top instead of people sinking into the snow. In a way its kind of like having two smaller snowboards under each foot instead of one long board under both. Wood and rawhide were great for a while, but like most things that have been around for a long-time people found ways to make them even better…. Some of the issues with the wooded first versions where they soaked up snow, warped, and were heavy. So eventually people started using stuff like aluminum, lightweight metals, and synthetics which made them stronger and lighter.

For a long time, snowshoes were a crucial part of societies as they were able to help people get their food and keep the society actually alive. Nowadays though stores and farms exist so pretty much snowshoes are just used for recreation.

 I’m sure some people out there use them still when they’re hunting for sport. We all know society today is very different from society thousands of years ago. As time moves on, I’m sure humanity will improve the ways we handle the different environments of our world making things even better than they are today. Eventually stuff today will look like how stuff ancient civilizations used to us, completely obsolete because that’s just how evolution works.