NORWAY — Fresh off her first-place finish in the world championships, the 4-year old in the bright pink snowsuit looked up at her father and said, in a voice that carried across the snowy field toward the warming hut, “My feet are cold.” 

John and daughter Aoife Gunn of Cumberland were out of breath, having just crossed the finish line ahead of several other competitors in the wife-carrying contest at the fifth annual Snow Shoe Festival at Roberts Farm Preserve.

In this part of Maine, wife-carrying events are an ingrained pastime imparted from Finnish immigrants, whose culture has been embraced by recreation enthusiasts and enjoys broad appeal. 

But wife-carrying on snowshoes? Festival organizers — unearthing no other events in an Internet search — bill theirs as the world’s only.

“Because of the Finnish tradition, we’re fond of carrying wives on  our backs in Western Maine. It’s a blast,” said event organizer Lee Dassler, who is executive director of the Western Maine Foothills Land Trust.

Of course, to make the event competitive a loose, evolving definition of “wife” was required: adults carried children, kids carried kids but, all in all, everyone carried a smile. 

“I’m going to carry the title proudly,” John Gunn said, laughing.  

Saturday’s family affair saw 25 people brave graying skies and dropping temperatures to compete in a variety of snow-related events, from a morning 5-kilometer run won by Jesse Wall of South Paris to a kids-only contest of musical chairs, a three-legged race and a 100-meter dash. 

The festival was originally named after Mellie Dunham, a forefather of Norway who centered his renowned snowshoe-making business in town. 

Dunham, who at one point annually shipped 600 snowshoes across the nation — making them for the likes of North Pole explorer Robert Peary Sr. — helped put Norway on the snowshoe-making map, according to author David Sanderson, who penned a 2003 biography of Dunham. 

Norway became synonymous with snowshoes, and was dubbed “Show shoe town of America.” A 16-foot snowshoe was erected in the late 1940s to welcome visitors to town. 

Wooden snowshoes have been mostly replaced by the metal ones worn by festival participants.

Afterward, inside the warming hut, families were seated around a wood stove as their boots, in rows in front of the fire, warmed patiently. Chocolates in the shape of snowshoes were pressed into the palms of kids and adults alike as the winners’ names were announced for the different events.

Applause from all, for all. 

“(Someone) was asking who won the whole match, and I think we all did,” Dassler said. 

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