Alaska's master snowshoe maker

From long strips of birch trees, master woodworker George Albert makes showpiece-quality snowshoes -- the kind you find hanging over fireplaces and doorways, harkening back to days bygone when times were tougher, people were hardier and the weather was harsher. His snowshoes evoke a sense of mythic romanticism, steeped in traditional culture and the frontier saga stories of self-sufficiency and isolation in Alaska's wilderness.

It's a sentimental characterization to be sure, and it misses the part of Albert's story that both resists and reaffirms that lore.

Albert didn't seek to make art -- at least, not at first. He simply wanted a good pair of running shoes.

In many of Alaska's villages, snowshoe races are an annual event, and there is robust competition to be the best. One year Albert, then in his early 20s, knew he was fast enough to win, but didn't have snowshoes to compete in. He borrowed a pair from an uncle, but had a nagging desire to see if he could cobble together his own.

Over the next two years, he spent hours at his family's camp trying to bend birch strips into a frame -- until one day his technique came together. Albert claims finally finding the right type of birch strip was an accident; nonetheless, he had a prototype frame he would use to eventually master the craft.

But that was just the frame. To be functional, the shoes needed webbing. A woman in Ruby showed him how to do the lacework, and Albert taught himself the technique by closely studying her finished work.

In time, Albert would go on to run -- and win -- more races wearing his own handmade shoes. And while people may be apt to treasure Albert's snowshoes as art, he is quick to emphasize they are meant to be used and enjoyed, and are built to last. Albert recently retired a pair after 20 years of use. Broken in, with soft, worn laces, the pair still looks great hanging above his studio door.

He is a self-taught master of the trade, one of only a few woodworkers knowledgeable in the craft, and he worries that when he dies the tradition will, too.

It's not that there aren't willing apprentices or students of modest interest. But Albert's intuitive tradition isn't easy to teach, nor does he have the patience to teach the wrong kind of student. To succeed, a student must already know wood and must want to pursue the craft with a self-driven inner intensity Albert has yet to detect in any of the would-be heirs to his handiwork.

When Albert first learned to make snowshoes, life was harder. Modern improvements like better homes, stoves and vehicles have made life in Alaska's mountainous Interior more comfortable. Still, Albert misses the quiet and isolation of life away from the village, and his daily work producing snowshoes helps him feel connected to a way of life that no longer wholly exists.

Contact Stephen Nowers at stephen(at)alaskadispatch.com. Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com.