I Own Fur Mukluks and They are Beautiful

I own a pair of fur mukluks from Canada. Putting them on involves threading the leather straps so they wind around my legs and tie in the front. These are not boots one just slips on to run outside. It’s a production.

My husband gave me these boots for Christmas several years back. I’ve worn them in Alaska at the Iditarod start where it is pretty common to see people wearing mukluks and also in Duluth with the same kind of dog sled racing crowd.

I’ve been less enthused about wearing them around town. They are, shall we say, ostentatious in an arctic kind of way. There is also the question of cultural appropriation which I mull over even though the boots were designed and made by a Native corporation in Manitoba.

Anyway, my husband was sad because I’ve not worn my mukluks since 2019. I get that because it makes me sad when people don’t wear or use the presents I’ve given them. I always do. My daughter gave me three-inch-long wooden earrings which I thought were outlandish considering my age and overall look but then I wore them and realized that she saw something in the earrings and me that I didn’t see. The earrings made me feel striking and proud, if that makes sense. Proud that someone would give me such earrings and proud that I would wear them.

I wore my mukluks this morning to Mutt Land, a dog park a bit north of here that we only go to on Sundays. It was beautiful there, the sun was shining, dogs running and chasing, our dogs doing their fancy trots down the path. All lovely. A rough-looking guy in an old winter jacket with a watch cap pulled down nearly to his eyes came toward us with an old, pretty hefty and slow pit bull on a leash. “Those are great boots,” he said, seeming like the person least likely to notice or care about my boots. Yes, they are, I thought. These are great boots. I nodded all this in appreciation since I dislike conversations at the dog park. It interrupts the flow, you know.

My husband took a picture of me with my mukluks at the dog park, probably because he figured I’d never wear them again. But I will. It’s just like the earrings. I just figured that out.