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Brian has been making snowshoes for almost forty years. He began learning with his father, who decided to learn for himself, because there was no money to buy snowshoes for his eleven children. Edmond picked up rudiments of snowshoe making from older snowshoe makers, then began to experiment with how to make them better. For two decades Brian and his father, Edmond have turned out hundreds of pairs of snowshoes. They tan, scrape and prepare the cowhide leather for the harnesses and rawhide for webbing. They split and bend the black ash, using molds which they have refined for almost forty years.
These days, traveling over or through snow with snowmobiles or plows is easy. But it wasn’t always so, and during a fierce Maine winter people still had to get around, often in waist-deep snow. Brian Theriault and his father Edmond of Fort Kent have been making traditional snowshoes to give timber cutters and Maine Guides a means of getting around regardless of the terrain or the amount of snow on the ground. As the elder Theriault says, “just a little strip of wood, a piece of skin, and you have transportation.
Theriault's Snowshoes
Master Snowshoe Makers
AWARDS Edmond Theriault

2017 Traditional Art Fellowship awarded by the Maine Arts Commission


AWARDS Brian J. Theriault

2017 Traditional Art Master Snowshoe Maker by the Maine Arts Commission, apprenticeship program.
 Apprenticeship is Hudson Labbe

2017 Maine Arts Commission’s Award, Project Grant for Artists program, 2017 World Snowshoe Championships at Saranac Lake NY, Adirondacks USA

2015 Traditional Art Fellowship
awarded by the Maine Arts Commission

2014 Artist Project Grant recipients, Maine Arts Commission, the making of traditional snowshoe and offering demonstration of the process during the 2014 World Acadian Congress

2013 Traditional Art Master Snowshoe Maker by the Maine Arts Commission, apprenticeship program.
Apprenticeship is Jordan Labbe

2011 Traditional Art Master Snowshoe Maker by the Maine Arts Commission, apprenticeship program.
Apprenticeship is Glenn Labbe

2005 Traditional Art Master Snowshoe Maker by the Maine Arts Commission, apprenticeship program.