70-year-old hand-made snowshoes returned to Gwich'in family in N.W.T.

A Gwich'in family in Fort McPherson, N.W.T., has a new heirloom after the son of a former RCMP officer returned a pair of 70-year-old snowshoes.

The snowshoes were made by John Tetlichi in the 1950s, and he gifted them to an RCMP officer who had been transferred to work in Aklavik, N.W.T.

That officer was Robert Feagan's father, Hugh Feagan. Robert spoke to CBC about the snowshoes, and his father's time in the North.

"He thought he was being smart," Robert said of his father. "Before he went to a Aklavik … he bought snowshoes from the store in Edmonton. When he got to Aklavik, he learned that they were horrible."

Locals directed the officer to John Tetlichi, known to make the best snowshoes in the region. Tetlichi agreed make him a pair.

"My dad used them for years, you know, breaking trail for dogs when the snow was deep and so on," Robert said.

Later, when Robert was in high school in Yellowknife, he used his father's snowshoes to tend to his own trapline. 

But Hugh Feagan, now 95 and living in Ontario, recently decided it was time for the gift to be returned. He contacted Robert, who lives in Edmonton and who had been in possession of the snowshoes for the past few decades.

"He loved those snowshoes, but he also realized even a bigger part of the Tetlichi family's heart would be filled by the snowshoes and that's why he wanted them to be taken home," Robert said.

Since John Tetlichi had passed away, Robert was instructed to reach out to the maker's son, Joseph Tetlichi. 

Joseph spoke to CBC alongside Robert Feagan.

"I didn't even know [my dad] made snowshoes," Joseph said, adding that at first he had thought Robert had reached out to the wrong family.

"I lived out on the land for 20 years trapping and hunting with him, and he never, he never in front of me, made snowshoes," he said.

However, Joseph said he checked with his older sister who confirmed that their father "made snowshoes periodically when he needed to."