Dianavan, you ask about that ubiquitous Canadian item of winter headgear, the toque (pronounced "tuque" in Canada). "Toque" is an old French word for a snug, brimless cap or bonnet with a raised crown. Made of felt, it survives in the academic regalia of the University of Paris; in luxurious materials such as velvet it has gone in and out of ladies' fashion for the better part of 200 years.

In Canada, where everybody needs a toque by the age of six weeks, the knitted form quickly became dominant because it could be made in even the poorest of households. A normal item of wear for woodsmen, trappers and farmers in Quebec since Jacques Cartier bumped into the Gaspé peninsula, the toque became popular as adult wear in the rest of Canada (where it was known as a "stocking cap") late in the 19th century, as sportswear.

Outdoor sport was enormously important to Victorian Canadians, and winter activities such as snowshoeing, tobogganing, skating and skiing were particularly popular. Snowshoeing was a healthy group activity that brought young men and women together in a socially accepted way, and became fashionable even in darkest English Ontario when the Governors General of that time (a sporty lot) began to patronize the Quebec winter carnival. The well-dressed snowshoer wore a coureur de bois outfit complete with moccasins, Hudson Bay blanket coat, ceinture fléché and toque. Pictures of the vice-regal family on toboggans, snowshoes and skates (and dressed appropriately) appeared in all the Canadian illustrated papers, and people hungry for winter fun quickly equipped themselves to follow suit.

That's probably a lot more about toques than you really wanted to know.