Retrospect: snowmobile boots

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor mentions snowmobile boots.

When I lived on the base in PEI, grades one to four, the kids there often had the same stuff. It makes sense, of course, that people who live close together, and feel comradery, will take each others’ advice about what to buy. Therefore, among the base kids, a few kinds of shoes were really common — same for jackets. The type of winter boot that was common was what everyone called “snowmobile boots.”

The snowmobile boots I refer to had a removable felt liner. In PEI, on winter days, the temp was usually not far from zero; puddles were rarely frozen solid. Moreover, kids would get snow in the boots when playing. It all could lead to boots getting wet inside, which was seen as a big problem.

Likely for that reason, snowmobile boots were so popular: you could remove their felt linings and put them near the radiator to dry them out. January through March, the kids’ boots would lie around the floor of the class outerwear closet, while their liners lay scattered near the radiator. The radiator was typically the length of the classroom, so all the liners had room next to it.

Year after year, this trend continued, so the snowmobile boots must’ve been good enough. I, and a few other kids, didn’t have snowmobile boots, so I can’t report how good they were.

When I moved to the Annapolis Valley, snowmobile boots were common, but not, I’d say, the majority. I didn’t live on the base in the Valley, and off-base, the kids’ possessions weren’t synchronized as they had been on-base.

BTW: I only knew two kids who actually had a snowmobile on the base in PEI. One wore snowmobile boots, but the other didn’t. Funny, eh?