Portage

For other uses, see Portage (disambiguation).

Portaging canoes in Algonquin Park

Portage or portaging refers to the practice of carrying watercraft or cargo over land to avoid river obstacles, or between two bodies of water. A place where this carrying occurs is also called a portage; a person doing the carrying is called a porter.

The English word portage is derived from the French noun "portage" and verb "porter" : to carry. Early French explorers ventured in New France and French Louisiana encountered many rapids and cascades. The Amerindians carried their canoes over land to avoid river obstacles. The French coureurs des bois, voyageurs, and trappers used the French word "portage".

Over time, important portages were sometimes upgraded to canals with locks, and even portage railways. Primitive portaging generally involves carrying the vessel and its contents across the portage in multiple trips. Small canoes can be portaged by carrying them inverted over one's shoulders and the center strut may be designed in the style of a yoke to facilitate this. Historically, voyageurs often employed a tump line on their head to carry a load on their back.

Portages can be many kilometers in length (as with the 19 km Methye Portage and the 8.5-mile (13.7 km) Grand Portage, both in North America) and often cover hilly or difficult terrain. Some portages involve very little elevation change, such as the very short Mavis Grind in Shetland, which crosses an isthmus.

Technique

This section deals mostly with the heavy freight canoes used by the Canadian Voyageurs.

Trails around portages usually began as animal tracks and were improved by tramping or blazing. In a few places iron-plated wooden rails were laid to take a handcart. Heavily used routes sometimes evolved into roads when sledges, rollers or oxen were used, as at Methye Portage. Sometimes railways were built (Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad). The basic purpose of most canals is to avoid portages.

When going downstream through rapids an experienced voyageur called the guide would inspect the rapids and choose between the heavy work of a portage and the life-threatening task of running the rapids. If the second course were chosen, the boat would be controlled by the avant standing in front with a long paddle and the gouvernail standing in the back with a nine-foot steering paddle. The avant had a better view and was in charge but the gouvernail had more control over the boat. The other canoemen provided power under the instructions of the avant.

In Russia trackers were called Burlaki (photo from the 1900s)

Going upstream was more difficult since there were many places where the current was too swift to paddle. Where the river bottom was shallow and firm, voyageurs would stand in the canoe and push it upstream with 10-foot poles. If the shoreline was reasonably clear the canoe could be 'tracked' or 'lined', that is, the canoemen would pull the canoe on a rope while one man stayed onboard to keep it away from the shore. (The most extreme case of tracking was in the Three Gorges in China where all boats had to be pulled upstream against the current of the Yangtze River.) In worse conditions, the 'demi-chargé' technique was used. Half the cargo was unloaded, the canoe forced upstream, unloaded and then returned downstream to pick up the remaining half of the cargo. In still worse currents, the entire cargo was unloaded ('décharge') and carried overland while the canoe was forced upstream . In the worst case a full portage was necessary. The canoe was carried overland by two or four men (the heavier York boats had to be drug overland on rollers) The cargo which was divided into standard 90-pound packs or pièces with each man responsible for about 6. One pack would be carried by a tumpline and one on the back (strangulated hernia was a common cause of death). In order to evenly distribute loaded and unloaded periods the voyageur would drop his pack at a pose about every half mile and go back for the next load. The time for a portage was estimated at one hour per half mile.

History

In Europe

Greco-Roman world

Paved section of the Diolkos

The Diolkos was a paved trackway in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth from the Gulf of Corinth to the Saronic Gulf. The 6 km (3.7 mi) to 8.5 km (5.3 mi) long roadway was a rudimentary form of railway, and operated from ca. 600 BC until the middle of the 1st century AD. The scale on which the Diolkos combined the two principles of the railway and the overland transport of ships remained unique in antiquity.

There is scant literary evidence for two more ship trackways by that name in antiquity, both located in Roman Egypt: The physician Oribasius (c. 320–400 AD) records two passages from his 1st century AD colleague Xenocrates, in which the latter casually refers to a diolkos close to the harbor of Alexandria which may have been located at the southern tip of the island of Pharos. Another diolkos is mentioned by Ptolemy (90–168 AD) in his book on geography (IV, 5, 10) as connecting a false mouth of a partly silted up Nile branch with the Mediterranean Sea.

In Russia

Yermak Timofeyevich and his band of adventurers crossing the Ural Mountains at Tagil, entering Asia from Europe

Nicholas Roerich. At a Portage in Rus.

In the Adirondacks at portages that were heavily used, horse-drawn wagons like this one were furnished with racks for carrying several boats at once, for a fee. This example is typical of those used in the 1890s. (Adirondack Museum).

In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, the Viking merchants-adventurers exploited a network of waterways in Eastern Europe, with portages connecting the four most important rivers of the region: Volga, Western Dvina, Dnieper, and Don. The portages of present-day Russia were vital for the Varangian commerce with the Orient and Byzantium.

At the most important portages (such as Gnezdovo) there were trade outposts inhabited by a mixture of Norse merchants and native population. The Khazars built the fortress of Sarkel to guard a key portage between the Volga and the Don. After the Varangian and Khazar power in Eastern Europe waned, Slavic merchants continued to use the portages along the Volga trade route and the Dnieper trade route. The names of the towns Volokolamsk and Vyshny Volochek may be translated as "the portage on the Lama River" and "the upper portage", respectively (the word "volok" means "portage" in Russian, derived from the verb "to drag").

In Africa

Portages played an important part in the economy of some African societies. For instance, Bamako was chosen as the capital of Mali because it is located on the Niger River near the rapids that divide the Upper and Middle Niger Valleys,

In North America

Places where portaging occurred often became temporary and then permanent settlements (such as Hull, Quebec; Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Chicago, Illinois). The importance of free passage through portages found them included in laws and treaties. The Northwest Ordinance says "The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States..." The Treaty of Greenville between the U.S. and the Indian tribes of the area includes: "And the said Indian tribes will allow to the people of the United States a free passage by land and by water, as one and the other shall be found convenient, through their country,..." Then four portages are mentioned specifically. Portages are also used in the treaty to set boundaries ("The general boundary line between the lands of the United States and the lands of the said Indian tribes, shall begin at the mouth of Cayahoga river, and run thence up the same to the portage..."). One historically-important fur trade portage is now Grand Portage National Monument. Recreational canoeing routes often include portages between lakes, for example, the Seven Carries route in Adirondack Park. Algonquin Park, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Sylvania Wilderness have famous portage routes.

Numerous portages were upgraded to carriageways and railways due to their economic importance. The Niagara Portage had a gravity railway in the 1760s. The passage between the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers (and so between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River systems) was through a short swamp portage which seasonally flooded and it is thought that a channel gradually developed unintentionally from the dragging of the boat bottoms. The 1835 Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad connected the cities of New York and Montreal without needing to go through the Atlantic. The passage between Lake Superior and Lake Huron was by a portage dragway of greased rails with capstans until a railway was built in 1850 and a canal in 1855. The 5-mile-long Nosbonsing and Nipissing Railway was built just to carry logs between lakes on their way to the sawmill. Allegheny Portage Railroad and Morris Canal both used canal inclined planes to pass loaded boats through portages.

Sometimes the settlements were named for being on a portage. Some places so named are:

• Cranberry Portage, Manitoba
• Giscome Portage, British Columbia
• Grand Portage, Minnesota
• Portage, Indiana
• Portage, Michigan
• Portage, Montana
• Portage, Pennsylvania
• Portage, Wisconsin
• Portage Bay, Washington
• Portage County, Ohio
• Portage County, Wisconsin
• Portage Park, Chicago
• Portage-du-Fort, Quebec
• Portage la Prairie, Manitoba
• Rat Portage, Ontario
• Seton Portage, British Columbia
• Bayou Portage, Louisiana

In Oceania

In New Zealand

Portages existed in a number of locations where an isthmus existed that the local Māori could drag or carry their waka across from the Tasman Sea to the Pacific Ocean or vice versa. The most famous ones are located in Auckland, where there remain two 'Portage Road's in separate parts of the city.

See also

Fitzcarraldo

References

• Cook, R. M. (1979), "Archaic Greek Trade: Three Conjectures 1. The Diolkos", The Journal of Hellenic Studies 99: 152–155 
• Drijvers, J. W. (1992), "Strabo VIII 2,1 (C335): Porthmeia and the Diolkos", Mnemosyne 45: 75–78 
• Fraser, P. M. (1961), "The ΔΙΟΛΚΟΣ of Alexandria", The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 47: 134–138 
• Lewis, M. J. T. (2001), "Railways in the Greek and Roman world", in Guy, A.; Rees, J. (PDF), Early Railways. A Selection of Papers from the First International Early Railways Conference, pp. 8–19 (10–15), http://www.sciencenews.gr/docs/diolkos.pdf 
• Raepsaet, G.; Tolley, M. (1993), "Le Diolkos de l’Isthme à Corinthe: son tracé, son fonctionnement", Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 117: 233–261 
• Verdelis, N. M. (1957), "Le diolkos de L'Isthme", Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 81: 526–529