Note 294 — SECTION IX. CATALOGUE-RAISONNÉ OF MODERN TRAVELS IN ICELAND—PREPARATIONS FOR TRAVEL.

Every kind of snow requires its own shoe. Thus the Norwegian “skies” are very different from the Iceland skí, which resembles the Finn “öndrar,” or “andrar.” These articles are six, seven, and even twelve feet long, by five inches wide, in fact like large cask-staves. The front ends are a little bent up, and the sides are garnished with iron (saddlers’) D’s, through which leather thongs, or bands of willow-withes, are passed to secure the feet. Sometimes for facility of turning, one is made longer than the other, and the Lapps sole the right foot with hairy skin, so as to hold the snow in the back stroke. The alpenstock in Iceland is a bone handled staff, with a stout spike: the author never saw the stick shod with a wheel three inches broad, and safe against sinking, which is used on the Continent.