Jonathan Gosnell is a professor and chair of French studies at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

For Canadian immigrants to the New England states, falling leaves and cooling temperatures signaled the approach of an extended period of joyful cultural expression, or joie de vivre, when community-wide snowshoeing took center stage. For weeks, enthusiasts planned the annual Congrés International des Raquetteurs, or the International Snowshoers Convention, providing an extended period of French merrymaking.

“‘Halte-la, Halte-la’ Snowshoers are coming!” proclaimed the bilingual French and English headlines of Manchester’s New Hampshire Sunday News (Jan. 12, 1952). Local French-language daily newspapers such as Le Messager from Lewiston,  L’Avenir National from Manchester and L’Étoile of Lowell, Massachusetts, all announced the arrival times of trains filled with American and Canadian snowshoers intent on exhibiting French exuberance. Not so long ago, border crossing was more carefree, and ethnic identity less suspect.

Snowshoe clubs first emerged in 1925, the brainchild of journalist, sportsman and future Lewiston mayor Louis-Philippe Gagné. A recent immigrant, he wanted French Canadians and their Franco-American descendants to better know and understand one another. 

A proponent of snowshoe diplomacy, Gagné asserted that  “…the most efficient diplomacy for good relationship […] and the best good-neighbor lie in a man-made product called a snowshoe. It makes you happy, healthy, and with it you become acquainted with the joy of living.” His hobby became a cultural movement that spread throughout the New England states and Canada.

Gagné founded the first New England snowshoe club, Les Montagnards, and helped organize the first international snowshoers convention held in Lewiston in 1925. For 100 years, Franco-Americans celebrated French Canadian heritage with a display of winter revelry recalling Mardi Gras strutting in New Orleans or the Mummers Parade in the Italian-American community of South Philadelphia.

Gagné’s sole surviving child, Denise Morin, remembers the early morning sounds of her father punching out his daily newspaper column, which touched upon convention excitement, as snow began to fall at the end of the year.

The snowshoeing extravaganza included French song, dance, banquets, prayer as well as good-natured athletic competition, all re-energizing and reconnecting North American French families on both sides of the border. Such celebration was never solely about snowshoeing although athletes competed in short- and long-distance races, even hurdling on snowshoes. 

At the Saturday evening torch-lit parade, attended by thousands in downtown Lewiston, Manchester, Montreal and Ottawa, drum and bugle bands marched in unison along with snowshoe club members dressed in their colorful costumes and singing the “Chant de convention” in French.

Majorettes pranced and twirled while music echoed through the streets. The parade often ended at an ice palace (Palais de glace) constructed expressly for festive gatherings during the convention. Mass at the local French Catholic church awaited revelers after the Sunday morning procession and so festivities quieted. The snowshoe unions made sure that local clubs monitored behavior. 

Men’s snowshoe clubs like Gagné’s Le Montagnard (1924) sported gray and garnet red costumes that sparkled during convention. Le Jacques Cartier (1925) paraded in their royal blue and white uniforms. No two clubs could display the same colors. Women’s clubs like the Dames Montagnard and La Gaieté (1925) quickly joined the men, each organization attired in distinctive garb, with the intent to foster love of snowshoeing in New England.

Today, these cultural artefacts can be viewed at the Franco-American Collection (FAC) at the University of Southern Maine-Lewiston. Archivist Anna Faherty related that people occasionally donate dusty family heirlooms from attics and enjoy coming to see them displayed.

Le Montagnard, Le Jacques Cartier, Le Cercle Canadien and Les Diables Rouges joined forces to establish an American Union of Snowshoers in Lewiston on March 17, 1925, joining the Canadian Snowshoers Union (1907). The American Union voted to welcome women snowshoers, les Raquetteuses, into their midst in November 1925. The Snowshoe Convention Queen, who presided over the opening ball, helped the mayor to present official city keys to the American and Canadian Snowshoe Union presidents each year. They are also on display at the FAC. 

At no other time were Franco-Americans and Franco-American traditions as visible in American mill towns of industrial New England as during the annual snowshoeing conventions. People congregated on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border in order to take part in shared cultural traditions that indeed transcended snowshoeing.

Enthusiasts publicly expressed a French ethnic identity, language and culture in an American society that tended to ignore them. Smith College historian Jennifer Guglielmo, who studies Italian-American cultural life, stated that “issues of class and race (and gender) get expressed in these moments since parades and festivals have historically been a (relatively safe) place for the expression of collective identity for European immigrants in the U.S.”

French ethnic identity could indeed be promoted by way of the traditional wooden snowshoe! Louis-Philippe Gagné was right.