Portage

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

in the history of American exploration, a break in a chain of water communication, a pathway over which goods and canoes must be carried, as from the headwaters of one river to another, from one lake to another, or around rapids. Canada, the Northwest Territory , and the divide which separates the Great Lakes from the Mississippi Valley abound in portages, with which the employes of the Hudson Bay Company , the French voyageurs, trappers, Jesuit missionaries, explorers, and Indian guides were familiar. The portages were the most tiresome parts of the long canoe journeys. On reaching a portage everyone went ashore, the canoes were emptied, the contents were made up into bundles and carried on the backs of boatmen from one water to another, sometimes a few rods, often many miles. A small birch bark canoe was turned upside down and carried by one man on his head. Larger boats required more carriers. On the trips toward Montreal and the other fur centers portaging was comparatively light. Guns, paddles, boats, and bales of fur were the principal articles to be carried, but on the outward journey there were heavy bales of merchandise and flour. Sometimes the toilsome labor of crossing a portage occupied several days. A student will have no difficulty in locating approximately, at least, the portages between the Penobscot and Alleguash; the Connecticut and St. Francis; the Hudson and Lake George; the Mohawk and the Oswego; the Wabash and the Maumee; the Illinois and Lake Michigan; the Wisconsin and the Fox; the St. Croix and the Bois Brules; Pigeon River and the head waters of Rainy Lake; the Ottawa and Georgian Bay, etc. The names of Portage, Wisconsin, Rat-portage in West Ontario, and Portage la Prairie in North Dakota are reminders of the tiresome toil once necessary at these places. See Canoe