Winter Costumes

C.W. Jefferys' notes about this picture from The Picture Gallery of Canadian History Volume 2

These illustrations show the clothing worn in Lower Canada a century and a half ago. For walking on the slippery streets of Quebec cloth shoes, or stockings worn over ordinary shoes, were worn. Crampons, removable soles with iron spikes, attached to shoes were also worn. Thompson, the building superintendent, complains of the damage done to the handsome new floors of the Chateau Haldimand, at its opening on the Queen's birthday, 18th January, 1787, by the crampons of visitors, which should have been taken off and left at the door. Mrs. Simcoe's Diary mentions that the troops practised walking on snow-shoes on the Plains of Abraham. She also says that women wear hoods lined with eider-down over a muslin cap, as shown in Lambert's drawing. The priest wears a small wig, which was permitted in cold weather.