Right image courtesy of Mark’s
As soon as the familiar winter chill hits the air, Canadians bring out their cold weather wardrobe: heavy parkas, well-lined toques and above all, a quality pair of winter boots. But choosing winter boots goes beyond the basic coziness needs of other outerwear; you need to account for safety in slippery, snowy and icy conditions.
Enter: IceFX®, the winter boot tread technology. Touted as a safer way to walk on ice, this leading-edge technology features an innovative tread design for greater traction and uses specialized materials that perform in the cold. Youll find it on more than 30 styles of rigorously tested boots, in a range of shapes and styles, at Mark's, the go-to casual apparel, footwear and work destination for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. 
Dread winter no more: With IceFX® treads, Mark's is helping more Canadians learn to
embrace the cold with a safer way to walk on ice.
Windriver Men's Backwoods Waterproof Hyper Dri 3 IceFX® Hiking Boots
MARK'S/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
The journey to warmer, drier, safer, and more comfortable
What sits on Mark's store shelves today is their exclusive line of anti-slip winter boots with IceFX® technology. But behind the tread that's earned the trust of countless Canadians - nearly 500 writing positive reviews in the last three years alone - is a story of commitment. It's taken Mark's years of experimentation and a dedication to safety — to get there.
Mark's has focused on reducing slips, trips and falls since 2003. Their mission? To bring Canadians warmer, drier, safer and more comfortable footwear. The journey began with an anti-slip turf shoe in the early aughts, when Marks' Vice President of Innovation, lain Summers, and his team, heard from landscapers and golfers that they were slipping on grass.
“We wanted to focus on ice, but we didn't know where to go and get support for it," Summers says. There was only one lab in the world doing any related research at the time, and it was in Finland. "We weren't convinced that they were working on it the way we should address it in Canada."
The team turned to their own drawing board, working to develop a sole that worked against ice slips. They tried everything from coconut shells and metal shavings to yarn mixed into a rubber mixture. At the time, the most commonly used materials were polyurethane and rubber, which harden as soon as they get cold, essentially eliminating any possibility for traction.
Around the dinner table while on a business trip, Summers had a eureka moment. He and his team met with an expert in the tire industry whose product, a tire infused with synthetic quartz called Green Diamond, was made to withstand cold, windy driving conditions akin to those Summers was working with in Canada.
“I said to him, can your product be put into footwear?" Summers recalls. "And he said, 'well, I don't see why not."'
Building a boot proved much more complicated than building a tire: Mark's spent years attempting to put this product into a boot sole, which required combining it with fiberglass material and rubber, finding the right blend, mix and positioning. They had boots that performed well, and boots that didn't - and customers didn't shy away from saying so. Summers says these are invaluable: They've pushed Mark's to build a better boot.
“The best comments were the people that called me and told me that something didn't work," Summers says.
All IceFX® treads are tested by four human volunteers across a range of ages, accounting for weight and gait in the shoe's slip factor.
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How KITE Lab puts treads to the test
It's one thing to find a winning material combination that works, and another to test its real-world practicality. Around the birth of IceFX ®, Mark's invested in a testing machine - a mechanical contraption that wears the boot - and brought it to their suppliers to assess the boots on a sheet of ice. "The problem with that is it doesn't take into account the human side of it,H Summers says. "It doesn't talk to your weight, to your gait, to how you walk/' So, they turned to the KITE Research Institute at the University Health Network in Toronto.
Unique to the world, KITE'S WinterLab is home to 128 scientists and nearly 500 staff studying how challenging icy, snowy and cold conditions impact mobility and safety. TheyYe also the number one destination for brands to test their footwear and obtain a
snowflake safety designation that indicates how hardy the shoe is in the snow, ice and cold.
Essentially a large ice box, KITE'S WinterLab simulates tumultuous outdoor conditions Canadians face. The room's ice and air temperature, as well as its positioning and movement can all be controlled from the outside, and can mimic subzero temperatures, winds greater than 70 kilometers per hour and almost any degree of slope and incline. It's an innovative, life-saving tool, and the method of testing took a decade to get right. 
Mark's tests its treads in labs that mimic sub-zero temperatures, 70 kilometre-per-hour winds
and almost any degree of slope you'd find on a Canadian winter day.
Walk confidently, Canada. Discover a safer way to walk on ice with Mark's exclusive line of anti-slip “I absolutely love my new boots," one customer wrote of the WindRiver IceFX® winter boot in a comment shared with Mark's last January. "I am not very steady on my feet sometimes, but with these, I feel very safe."
IceFX® treads can be found on more than 30 styles of boot on store shelves.
Women's Ice Queen IceFX® T-Max Insulated Waterproof Leather Winter Boots
MARK'S/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
The future of safer footwear
Even after years of innovation, the winter boot business is showing no signs of stopping any time soon. KITE is currently several years into developing a method to retest boots at different stages of wear to see how long they continue to pass the traction test. And Mark's hasn't stopped innovating, either. They'll be working closely with KITE to test the performance and lifespan of IceFX® soles.
"From a durability standpoint, we want the boots to last a long time," Summers says. “We're really focusing on that; how to keep the materials soft without wearing out," so our trusted customers can stay warmer, drier, safer, and more comfortable - no matter the season or activity.
Over the next three years, Mark's has its sights set on proving they can keep the polymers and elastomers in the IceFX ® sole soft in the winter - a study that will continue to improve the brand's accessibility and affordability. There are even boots for our four-legged friends in the works. Although not tested the same, they contain IceFX® technology to make sure Canadian dogs can stay safe while enjoying a brisk winter walk, too.
“We invest a lot of time and resources designing things and then learning how they perform. Finding out that they work or don't work," Summer says. But it's never a waste: MWe get smarter every time we try something new."
Advertising feature produced by Globe Studio with Mark's. The Globe's editorial department was not involved.
