Think you need four-wheel drive and a sport-utility vehicle to make it through a northern Maine winter?

There’s a simpler way to travel: snowshoes. And they’ll take you places even a Hummer can’t reach.

“You take two pieces of wood and a piece of skin and you make transportation for the snow – you can go anywhere you want,” Edmond Theriault said.

He should know. The 83-year-old Eagle Lake man started making snowshoes more than 30 years ago out of necessity. He had a family of 11, and he needed a hobby that would help him get around in the woods – and help him get by financially. In time, he passed on the tradition to his son Brian, 49, who has earned national and international acclaim for his craftsmanship.

“You don’t find many people who make snowshoes in that manner,” said Keith Ludden, community and traditional arts associate for the Maine Arts Commission, which awarded Brian Theriault an apprenticeship last year. “Sure, you can go into a store and buy snowshoes made out of aluminum and nylon, but it’s not the same thing. … They’re using materials that are available to them.”

At a time when many snowshoes on the market are mass-produced and machine-made, the Theriaults spend countless hours harvesting brown ash, shaping it to create frames, and scraping hides by hand to eventually be woven into webbing. The molds and tools they use are of their own creation, and the skins they scrape come from deer they’ve hunted.

“It’s been a team effort,” Brian Theriault said in the basement workshop of his father’s home. “I think I’ve touched everything that has gone out, and so has my father. We go get trees together. We’ve discussed stuff: How could we do this? What if we did that? How can we improve these?”

For the Theriaults, their craft is a way of life. Brian, who lives in Fort Kent, worked in the lumber industry and now manages rental properties. He and his father, a retired postmaster, spent many years trapping and hunting in the woods of the St. John Valley.

“When you’re trapping beavers, you’ve gotta get around on brooks, and it’s tough to do if you don’t have snowshoes,” Brian said.

Over time, Brian and Edmond developed their own designs, which work especially well in the “thick, sticky snow” of the St. John Valley. The pattern of their three-way weave looks like a series of elongated stars, and though it’s aesthetically pleasing, it’s meant to be practical.

The big holes at the center of each “star” allow the user to float because the snow doesn’t stick and weigh down the shoe. Their weaving technique makes for a sturdy webbing that will move up and down, but won’t loosen with repeated use. The bindings are made like hinges for mobility, and the shoes feature big, sturdy buckles made from thick leather. Aside from that, there is no metal on the shoe.

The Theriaults offer one standard design that comes in several sizes, but their custom shoes ensure that even a 350-pound trapper won’t sink in the snow.

“We haven’t changed in a long time,” Brian Theriault said. “We don’t know how we can improve them.”

“There’s nothing more we can do,” Edmond added. “That’s it.”

They do most of their work in winter – that way, the rawhide won’t rot in the heat, and the trees that they cut down won’t dry out as quickly. Brian, who has an associate’s degree in forestry from the University of Maine at Fort Kent, can spot a brown ash tree from a distance. The trees are plentiful in the area, and both men maintain that brown ash is the best wood for the job – and for the pack baskets Edmond’s wife, Joan, makes.

The Theriaults start with green wood, so they don’t have to steam it, and they form it around molds of their own design. Once the wood has been taken off the mold, the Theriaults hand-chisel holes into the frame for the rawhide webbing. To punch holes in the leather straps, Brian created an ergonomically correct mechanism that resembles a hobby horse so that his hands wouldn’t tire.

“You’re not in a hurry because you’re not going to do anything fast,” Brian said. “The molds take time to make. The shoes take time to make. You do a little bit of the process here and a little bit of the process there.”

Edmond Theriault learned the craft from Willie Roy, a local man who sold snowshoes for $2 a pair during the Great Depression to provide for his family. Thirty years ago, Roy was one of many people in the area who knew how to make snowshoes. Today, there are only a handful of craftsmen in the state who are carrying on the tradition, and the Theriaults believe they’re the sole snowshoe outfit in northern Aroostook County.

“People [think they] don’t need snowshoes as much as they used to,” Edmond Theriault said. “The thing is, if you want to go everywhere in the woods, you need snowshoes.”

To ensure that the tradition lives on, Brian teaches snowshoe making through Fort Kent’s adult education program. He is in the process of writing a book that describes the craft in great detail. He gave demonstrations at the inaugural National Folk Festival in Bangor, and hopes to do so again this summer. In recent years, he has traveled to Montbeliard, France, to show and sell snowshoes during the annual Marche de Noel (Christmas marketplace).

“We don’t want to lose this,” Brian said. “This is a dying art and tradition. These rawhide and wood strips are very important. They used to be very important in the old days and they can be just as important today because there is a need, there is a demand, there is a market.”

The Theriaults’ snowshoes range in price from $204 to $230 per pair. For information or to order, call Brian Theriault at 834-4510 or write to him at P.O. Box 242, Fort Kent Mills 04744.