They work and you can get fancy ones that you can run in,
How did you get by when in Canada?
Vancouver does not snow too much so not many days when the pavement was iced up. Also we went X-Country Skiing which is a great way to get out and enjoy the cold!
The Snowshoes we had were also fun, but not the racing types that started to get popular and there were Snow Shoe races for crazy type people as it is very hard to move quickly when you are up to your thighs in powdery snow!