"Portage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an excellent example of the constant menace to individualism and the irresistible tendency toward unionism resulting from the advance of population, the topography of the country, and the cupidity of the people. The portage across the watershed from the streams of the Atlantic plain to those of the Ohio valley had been a matter of concern from colonial times. Artificial waterways were impossible from lack of water-supply on the high levels. The Union ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... the only steamer in the river St. Mary, above the falls, which is a sort of arm or harbor of Lake Superior, was the Julia Palmer, and she was lying aground in the pebbles and sand of the shore. She had just been dragged over the portage which passes round the falls, where a broad path, with hillocks flattened, and trunks hewn off close to the surface, gave tokens of the vast bulk that had been moved over it. The moment she touched ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... souls of all who die a natural death, ascend to the habitations of the gods. And, from Le Gobien, we learn that this very notion is adopted by his islanders—Si on a le malkeur de mourir de mort violente, on a l'enfer pour leur portage. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... and marines attempted to cut out three American schooners that lay at the foot of the lake near Fort Erie. The British forces were at Queenstown, on the Niagara River; but by dint of carrying their boats twenty miles through the woods, then poling down a narrow and shallow stream, with a second portage of eight miles, the adventurers managed to reach Lake Erie. Embarking here, they pulled down to the schooners. To the hail of the lookout, they responded, "Provision boats." And, as no British were thought to be on Lake Erie, the response satisfied the officer of the watch. He quickly ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as does a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath, ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... it was madness to think of descending here, and that a portage was necessary. The contents of the boats were lifted out, and then one of them was carried down over the rocks by the united strength of the party. They had gone half a mile when they came to a spot where ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... my people or bur friends, but I shall pass from one force to the other, and whenever I can warn the loyal troops, or apprise their people of danger, I shall do it. You Julie I shall leave in the care of my aunt at the Portage; for it is not safe for you, it would not be safe for you and me together, to remain in this deserted cottage alone during ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the girdle of one of them, and cut a slit in the gurglet large enough to admit the bags of precious stones. The skin was roomy, and received them, though with the loss of much of the water. Having thus disposed of that portion of the plunder to the best advantage both for portage and concealment, he helped swing it securely upon the negro's shoulder, and without other delay led from the chamber to the great outdoors, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... the madness of the Dyea beach, congested with thousand-pound outfits of thousands of men. This immense mass of luggage and food, flung ashore in mountains by the steamers, was beginning slowly to dribble up the Dyea Valley and across Chilkoot. It was a portage of twenty-eight miles, and could be accomplished only on the backs of men. Despite the fact that the Indian packers had jumped the freight from eight cents a pound to forty, they were swamped with the work, and it was plain that winter would catch the major portion of the outfits ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... he got a chance to drive a canal-boat team. He fell sick and came home, and when he got well he learned carpentering. With his earnings in that trade he helped himself through the Academy at Chardon in Geauga County. From there he went to Hiram College, in Portage County, and then to Williams College, in Massachusetts. He studied law, and was elected to the Ohio Senate, which he left to enter the army. He was a brave and able soldier, and rose from lieutenant to be major general, before he left the service of ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... the spring of 1673 with five companions in two canoes. Their way was from the Strait of Mackinac to Green Bay in Wisconsin, up the Fox River, across a portage to the Wisconsin River, and down this to the Mississippi, on whose waters they floated and paddled to a place probably below the mouth of the Arkansas. There the travelers stopped, and turned back toward Canada, convinced that the great river [6] must flow not to the Pacific, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... this plan, the first and second detachments ascended the Grande River together, crossed the Wagansis portage, and reached the confluence of the Grande Fourche and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... couple of notched logs, as shown in Fig. 169. By the way, boys, the Indian with the big load on his back is my old friend Bow-Arrow, formerly chief of the Montainais, and the load on his back was sketched from the real one he carried up that ladder portage. This old man was then sixty years of age. But all this talk is for the purpose of telling you the use of the notched log. Our pioneer ancestors used them to ascend to the loft over their cabins where they slept (Fig. 170). It is also a good ladder to use for tree-houses and ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... rapids of the Joachims and the Caribou, the Rocher Capitamne, and the Deux Rivieres, and reached at length the trihutary waters of the Mattawan. He turned to the left, ascended this little stream forty miles or more, and, crossing a portage track, well trodden, reached the margin of Lake Nipissing. The canoes were launched again, and glided by leafy shores and verdant islands till at length appeared signs of human life and clusters of bark lodges, half hidden in the vastness of ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... to take account of the furs brought in, to distribute recompense, and to enforce the simple law. Attached to this room on the south was the great store-room, packed with those articles of merchandise most likely to seem of worth in savage eyes and brought, with such infinite labour by canoe and portage, from those favoured lower points whose waters admitted the yearly ships—namely, rifles and ammunition, knives of all sorts, bolts of bright cloth and beads of the colour of the rainbow, great iron kettles such as might hang most ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... not explore the river further, but he ascertained a few days later that the Indians used the river in their journeys to Tadousac, making but a short portage on the way. ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... Portage La Prarie was indeed an enterprising little town and possessing many of the characteristics of earlier ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... the present Peoria, intending it as a starting-point for an expedition down the Mississippi. The expedition here described, organized in 1681, comprized, beside La Salle and Tonti, thirty Frenchmen and a band of Indians. It reached the Mississippi by way of the Chicago portage and the Illinois River, and arrived at the mouth in 1682. In 1684 La Salle attempted to found a settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi. Starting from France, he made a landing in Matagorda Bay, Texas, ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... the roaring of waters reverberating against the walls of rock. Upon such a warning the boats were landed, and if there was ledge room to walk, the men carried and dragged their vessels around the danger spot. If there was no shelving 5 rock wide enough to permit a portage, the men climbed to a higher ledge and eased the boats over the falls with ropes. Sometimes nothing was left to do but to "shoot" the falls and trust to luck to ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... in "good shape fer der vinter," he would, besides the wages agreed, give them the canoe, one axe, six mink traps, and a fox trap now hanging in the barn, and carry them in his wagon as far as the Five-mile portage from Lake George to Schroon River, down which they could go to its junction with the upper Hudson, which, followed up through forty miles of rapids and hard portages, would bring them to a swampy river that enters from the southwest, and ten miles up this would ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... division, consisting of Messrs. H.M. Myers, R.H. Forbes, and W. Gilbert, of Williams College, proceeded to Venezuela, and after exploring the vicinity of Lake Valencia, the two former traversed the Ilanos to Pao, descended the Apure and ascended the Orinoco to Yavita, crossed the portage of Pimichin (a low, level tract, nine miles wide, separating the waters of the Orinoco from those of the Amazon), and descended the Negro to Manaos, making a voyage by canoe of over 2000 miles through a little-known but deeply-interesting region. ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... bend to the oar! Merry is the life of the gay voyageur. The brave, jolly boatman,—he never is afraid When he meets at the portage a red, forest maid, A Huron, or a Cree, or a blooming Chippeway; And he marks his trail with the bois bruls. So pull away, boatmen; bend to the oar; Merry is the life of the gay voyageur. Home again! home again! bend to ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... nothing so becomes a man, As modest stillness, and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage: Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head, Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it, As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Patrick's virtue must have been severe during the last ten days of our expedition; for we went down the Riviere des Ecorces, and that is a tough trip, and full of occasions when consolation is needed. After a long, hard day's work cutting out an abandoned portage through the woods, or tramping miles over the incredibly shaggy hills to some outlying pond for a caribou, and lugging the saddle and hind quarters back to the camp, the evening pipe, after supper, seemed to comfort the men unspeakably. If their tempers had ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... stage-coaches, mail-riders, highwaymen, chariots, herdsters, and tramps; for Christina bridge was on the great tide-water road and at the head of navigation on the Swedish river of the same name, so that here vessels from the Delaware transferred their cargo to wagons, and a portage of only ten miles to the Head of Elk gave goods and passengers reshipment down the Chesapeake. This village declined only when the canal just below it was opened in 1829 and a little railway in 1833. It was nearly a century and a half old when Minuit ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... people, and given everybody medicine, and flour, and a terrible scolding. Oh yes, he was angrier than anybody had ever been before. Some natives from the school at Holy Cross were coming for him tomorrow, and they were all going down river and across the southern portage to the branch mission ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Hudson river, which divides into two branches about ten miles north of Albany. The western branch is called the Mohawk, leading to Rome, formerly Fort Stanwix. A branch of the Mohawk, called Wood Creek, leads towards the Oneida lake, which was reached by a portage. From Oneida Lake, Lake Ontario was reached by the Oswego river. Flat-bottom boats, specially built or purchased for the purpose by the Loyalists, were used in this journey. The portages over which the boats had to be hauled, and all their ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... explanations. He had had to leave the sail unsewn, was all he had to say, but he embroidered on this simple fact so largely that Joseph lost patience and began to tell them he had come to Galilee, Pilate wishing him to add the portage of wheat from Moab to the trade already started in figs and dates. So Pilate is in the business, Peter ejaculated, for Peter did not think that a Jew should have any dealings with Gentiles, and this opinion, abruptly expressed, threw the discourse again ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... Aristophe—had one nice quality. Of course, it was a quality which appealed most to the beneficiary, yet it seemed well to me also to have my guests surrounded with mercy and loving kindness. John had but to suggest building a fire or greasing his boots or carrying a canoe over any portage to any lake, and the Lizzie at once leaped with a bright smile as who should say that this was indeed a pleasure. "C'est bien, M'sieur," was his formula. He would gaze at John for sections of an hour, with his flabby mouth open in speechless surprise as if at the ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... on the Wabash, at the end of the Portage of the Miami of the Lake; also ceded by treaty of August 3, 1795, and bounded on the ...
— Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United States: Illustrated by Those in the State of Indiana • C. C. Royce
... extinction of the Indian title not only to the lands within Manitoba, but also to so much of the timber grounds east and north of the Province as were required for immediate entry and use, and also of a large tract of cultivable ground west of the Portage, where there were very few Indian inhabitants." It was therefore resolved to open negotiations at the Lower Fort Garry, or Stone Fort, with the Indians of the Province, and certain adjacent timber districts, and with the Indians of the other ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... real job was an ascent of Erebus, the active volcano which rose from our doors to some 13,400 feet in height. A party of Shackleton's men under Professor David went up it in March, and managed to haul a sledge up to 5800 feet, from which point they had to portage their gear. A year before this Debenham, with the help of a telescope, selected a route by which they could haul a sledge up to 9000 feet. There proved to be no great difficulty about it; it was just a matter of ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... mouth well up toward its source a smooth, graded highway, upon which a cargo may be transported with much less effort than overland. If obstructions occur in the form of rapids or falls, boat and cargo are carried around them. It is often easy to pass by a short portage or "carry" from one stream system across the divide to another. In regions which are not very level the easiest grades in every direction are found along the streams, and the main routes of land travel follow the stream valleys. In traversing a mountainous region, a railroad ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... little pistol. The third, and last, is pencil and paper, and lists of grub and duffel, and estimates of routes and expenses, and correspondence with men who spell queerly, bear down heavily with blunt pencils, and agree to be at Black Beaver Portage on a certain date. Now, though the February snow and sleet still shut him in, the spring has draw very near. He can feel the warmth of her breath rustling through ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... is hees biz-nesse ma frien'—I know dat's all right dere I'll wait till he call "'Poleon" den I will be prepare— An' w'en he fin' me ready, for mak' de longue voyage He guide me t'roo de wood hesef upon ma las' portage. ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... Cary, "the foundation of the church and altar of the Norridgewocks are still visible, but the Indians have disappeared and desolation reigns over the scene of blood. At these Falls we had our first portage." ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... had to carry a canoe on your head when you made a portage," said Slim sheepishly, amid the laughter of the rest. "They always do it that way in the pictures," he ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... be used on water. Anybody can prove the truth of the rule for himself by seeing how much easier it is to paddle a hundred pounds ten miles in a canoe than to carry the same weight one mile over a portage. ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... we basked in the sunshine on the captain's bridge. Think of being glad to bask in the sunshine on a 4th of August! Between Marquette and Portage River we passed but one house,—one solitary, lonely house, set on the very edge of the "unsalted sea;" before it a vast expanse of limitless waters, behind it an unbroken, limitless forest; no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... he meant. Fort Gibraltar had been destroyed by Hudson's Bay men. We had no alternative but to strike west along the Assiniboine, on the chance of meeting some Nor'-Westers before reaching the company's quarters at the Portage. That post, too, might be destroyed; but where were Hamilton and Father Holland? Danger, or no danger, I must learn more of the doings in Red River. Also, there were reasons why I wished to visit the settlers ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... had climbed from the muddy level of Portage Lake, which with its recently cut ship-canals bisects Keweenaw Point, making of its upper end an island, and was speeding northward over a rough upland. Its way led through a naked country of rocks and low-growing scrub, for the ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... followed up the shores of the Saskatchewan. It was a hundred and forty miles from the Hudson's Bay Company's post of Cumberland House to Prince Albert as the crow would fly, but Keith did not travel a homing line. Only now and then did he take advantage of a portage trail. Clinging to the river, his journey was lengthened by some sixty miles. Now that the hour for which Conniston had prepared him was so close at hand, he felt the need of this mighty, tongueless friend ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... uncontrollable the boats entered a rapid, and one of them was driven in shore, but as there was no foothold for a portage the men pushed into the stream again. The next minute a reflex wave filled the open compartment and water-logged her: breaker after breaker rolled over her, and one capsized her. The men were thrown out, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... lower Beaver River to the point where Hubbard discovered it, and where, in 1903, we abandoned our canoe to re-cross to the Susan River Valley a few days before his death. Here it was our expectation to follow the old Hubbard portage trail to Goose Creek and thence down Goose Creek to ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... River. The French Captain saw only a few Indian teepees at the Forks, and ascended the Assiniboine. It was a very dry year, and the water in the Assiniboine was so low that it was with difficulty he managed to pull over the St. James rapids, and reached where Portage la Prairie now stands, and sixty miles from the site of Winnipeg claimed the country for his Royal Master. Here he collected the Indians, made them his friends, and proceeded to build a great fort, and named it after Mary of Poland, the ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... hold on him." Then his indignation flamed out unchecked. "I never could stand those Percy women, anyway; saw a bunch of them, all dress and airs, when I was last in Winnipeg. One was standing outside a ticket-office at Portage, studying the people through an eyeglass on an ivory stick, as if they were some strange savages, and making remarks about them to her friends, though I guess there isn't a young woman in the city with nerve enough to wear the clothes she had on. It makes a sensible ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... lie athwart the way of Keeonekh the otter, when he goes a-courting and uses Musquash's portage to ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... de muscle along hees back,— Won't geev' heem moche bodder for carry pack On de long portage, any size canoe; Dere's not many t'ings dat boy won't do, For he's got double-joint on hees body ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... steady perseverance and intrepidity of my Indians carried me on rafts in four days, to accomplish which otherwise, would have required, probably, two weeks. We landed at various places on both banks of the river on our way down, but found no traces of the Red Indians so recent as those seen at the portage at Badger Bay-Great Lake, towards the beginning of our excursion. During our descent, we had to construct new rafts at the different waterfalls. Sometimes we were carried down the rapids at the rate of ten miles an hour, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... allied to the French. These two posts, (viz.) Niagara and Sclusser, were of great importance to the British, on the account of affording the means of communication with the posts above, or on the upper lakes. In 1760, a contract was made between Sir William Johnston and a Mr. Stedman, to construct a portage road from Queenston landing to Fort Sclusser, a distance of eight miles, in order to facilitate the transportation of provision, ammunition, &c. from one place to the other. In conformity to this agreement, on the 20th of ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... what I have since learned from the natives, rises between the head of the Invich and Wager rivers, and is about ninety-five miles in length. To the south and west of where we stood it passed over a broad stony portage, and beyond that swelled out, as do most of the rivers in this country, into a series of broad lakes ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... need not go further than the Pine Portage. The party on foot will have found out, before the canoes reach that, whether Dan has got clear off, and they can rejoin the canoes at the Portage. So, Fergus, I'll join your party too. Who ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... foot for opening a line of communication for trading purposes between Lake Erie and the Ohio river, by cleaning out the channels of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas riverspretentiousssage of boats and batteaux; a wagon road, seven miles long, from Old Portage to New Portage, making the connection between the two rivers. It was supposed that twelve thousand dollars would suffice for the purpose, and the Legislature authorized a lottery by which the funds were to be raised. There were to be twelve thousand eight hundred ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... to keep the trail. There was absolutely no path. All the trail, was that made by my two Indians, and Indians are trained to leave as little evidence of their movements as possible. So I was often lost. I would at the beginning of the portage, bravely shoulder my burden and endeavour to keep in sight of my men. This, however, I found to be an utter impossibility. A sharp turn among the rocky ridges, or a plunge into the dense dark forest, and they ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... colonel pointed out an empty building, and told us to drop our luggage there, and amuse ourselves until we heard further from him. This town of San Juan del Sur is entirely the creation of the Nicaragua Transit Company, and is the Pacific terminus of the Isthmus portage-road. It consisted of half a dozen board hotels, and a litter of native grass-thatched huts, and lay at the foot of a high, woody spur, which curves out into the sea and forms the southern rim of a beautiful little harbor, completed by another less elevated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... the sixth of July Celoron reached Niagara. This, the most important pass of all the western wilderness, was guarded by a small fort of palisades on the point where the river joins the lake. Thence, the party carried their canoes over the portage road by the cataract, and launched them upon Lake Erie. On the fifteenth they landed on the lonely shore where the town of Portland now stands; and for the next seven days were busied in shouldering canoes and baggage up and down the steep hills, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... portage," said the miner to Jack, who was walking with him, as they topped the rise, they went forward to inspect the creek. Directly in front of them where the stream had made a turn, the heavy timber of the forest had retreated back from the ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... thin face twitched. "I thank you. No other possible landing place or foothold, is there? And it would take a day to go back to Tomlinson's and portage a canoe. Well, we'll go on to the end in a last hope that ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... A. Talcott has, besides verifying a part of the line of 1840 and tracing the course of Indian Stream (a branch of the Connecticut) to its source, explored and surveyed the line of highlands which extends from the Kennebec road to the Temiscouata portage, and so much of the line claimed by Great Britain as extends from the Kennebec road to the eastward as far as the head of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... half are whitish and opaque, the difference depending upon the class of country through which they have flowed. The dark indicate vegetable decay, while the others point to clayey soil. Twice we came across rapids, and in each case made a portage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either side were primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of the second growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes through ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... won the right to take the first paddle in the Keewaydin. They carried the canoe on their heads, portage fashion, around the dam, and launched it up above, where the confined waters had spread out into a wide pond. "Oh, what a joy to dip a paddle again!" sighed Sahwah blissfully, sending the Keewaydin ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... the patent track-horse. And when at length she was sold, by the indignant carpenter of Moret, there were sold along with her the "Arethusa" and the "Cigarette", she of cedar, she, as we knew so keenly on a portage, of solid-hearted English oak. Now these historic vessels fly the tricolour and are known by new ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too bad, boy, not too bad for a one day's go. We'll camp right here at the portage. How ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... believed that a land portage would always be necessary between the sea and the Zambesi, above the delta, till 1889, when Mr. Rankin discovered the Chinde branch of the delta, so broad and so deep that ocean vessels may ascend it and exchange freight ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... overhauled them about fifteen miles back from the railroad where Indian Creek and Wolverine River joined waters. From there he had followed them up stream for a few miles, keeping his distance, till they came to a portage where the entire party disembarked. Instead of making the portage to a point farther up, they had gone into camp at what appeared to be an old lumber camp that had not been in use for a couple of seasons. It looked as if they intended to stay ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... under a grassy hillside set with trimmed elms, and came to Grange Mill and another portage; and below Grange to Bidford, where there is a bridge of many arches carrying the old Roman road called Icknield Street; and from the bridge and grey little town they struck into a long reach that ran straight into the dazzle of the sun—through ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... marshy and oats-choked Fox River, constantly widening to little lakes and receding to a throat of a channel, brought the explorers to the portage, or carrying place. The canoes then had to be unloaded, and both cargo and boats carried overland to a bend of the Miscousing, which was the Indian name for Wisconsin River. "This portage," says a traveler who afterwards followed ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the odoriferous little bedrooms, the bustle of the preparation, the cares of their lives, were behind. Then there was a girding up of the loins, a getting out of tump-lines and canvas packs, and the long portage was begun. ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... intensely cold, and the going heavy, with here and there the rivers bursting up through the broken ice and creating very difficult trails. But they were all used to that, and did not mind it. Over a portage at a certain point they secured the services of an Indian, named Esau, to break trail and guide them to a certain point from which Carter was sure he knew the way. There the Indian was discharged and returned ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... Kit Carson in the Far West. Up the Allegheny River above Pittsburgh there are Brady's Bend and East Brady, to remind people of his deeds; near Beaver, Pennsylvania, at the Ohio River below Pittsburgh, there are Brady's Run, Brady's Path and Brady's Hill; in Portage County, northeastern Ohio, over toward the Pennsylvania line, there are Brady's Leap and Brady's Lake. So Captain Samuel Brady left his mark ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... rough map from my wallet and handed it to her. "Much larger, you see," I said. "It almost bisects the peninsula. Only the Sturgeon portage, about a mile long, separates it from the lake of the Illinois. We ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... arrived at the end of their first "portage," the shores of the little lake which Mr Meldrum had noticed trending in an eastward direction. This water would now considerably aid their passage across the isthmus by allowing the jolly-boat to take to its native element, on whose bosom it would ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Talon, the Intendant of New France. Marquette was well acquainted with the Canadas, and had great influence with the Indian tribes. They conducted an expedition through the lakes, up Green bay and Fox river, to the Portage, where it approaches the Wisconsin, to which they passed, and descended that river to the Mississippi, which they reached the 17th of June, 1673. They found a river much larger and deeper than it had been represented by the Indians. ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... blocked by the canal rapids. The river there rushes through a deep and narrow canon strewn with sharp rocks, a perilous pass at all times for the most expert canoeist. We did not attempt it, but, making a landing in Deep Bay, took the safer portage around. At the end of a two-mile tramp we reached a clearing at the foot of the canon where the loggers had camped at one time. Black bass and partridge go well together when a man is hungry, and there was something so suggestive ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... mill caused them to pull up short. They headed straight for shore, and as they scrambled out at the foot of the hill, and pushed through the bushes, intending to see what the chances were for a portage, they blundered into the two missing canoes and ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... unnecessary to the Indian in the summer time. With his light birch canoe he can go almost everywhere he desires. If obstructions block up his passage, all he has to do is to put his little canoe on his head, and a short run will take him across the portage, or around the cataracts or falls, or over the height of land to some other lake or stream, where he quickly embarks and continues ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... portage was necessary to reach Atlin Lake, and taking a part of our baggage upon our shoulders we hired the remainder packed on horses and within an hour were moving up the smooth path under the small black pines, across the low ridge which separates ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... nailing up a clematis her father, who was a vigorous man, had found it difficult to carry her upstairs. Vane had never carried any woman in his arms before, but he had occasionally had to pack—as it is termed in the West—hundred-and-forty-pound flour bags over a rocky portage, and, though the comparison did not strike him as a happy one, he thought the girl was not quite so heavy as that. He was conscious of a curious thrill and a certain stirring of his blood, but this, he decided, must be sternly ignored. His task was not an easy one, and he stumbled once or twice, ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... for the colony in three Mackinaw boats, carrying three hundred bushels of wheat, one hundred bushels of oats, and thirty bushels of peas. Being stopped by ice in Lake Pepin, they planted a May pole and celebrated May day on the ice. They reached home by way of the Minnesota river, with a short portage to Lake Traverse, the boats being moved on rollers, and thence down the Red River to Pembina, where they arrived in safety on the third day of June. This trip cost Lord Selkirk ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... so much fun. I hadn't thought, before, we had one thing more than we needed, but now it seemed as if we had a thousand. Sara, it took us four hours to make that portage, and my back ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... Lake Superior (under which head are included the following bands: Fond du Lac, Boise Forte, Grand Portage, Red Cliff, Bad River, Lac de Flambeau, and Lac Court D'Oreille) number about five thousand one hundred and fifty. They constitute a part of the Ojibways (anglicized in the term Chippewas), formerly one of ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... my sister and her husband grubstaked me into the Klondike. It was the first gold rush into that region, the early fall rush of 1897. I was twenty-one years old, and in splendid physical condition. I remember, at the end of the twenty-eight-mile portage across Chilcoot from Dyea Beach to Lake Linderman, I was packing up with the Indians and out-packing many an Indian. The last pack into Linderman was three miles. I back-tripped it four times a day, and on each forward trip carried one hundred and fifty pounds. ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... on June 16. With difficulty he crossed the twenty-mile portage to Lake Otsego, and by the end of the month was able to tell General Sullivan that he was ready for the last stage of the journey. Sullivan, on the other hand, was making no attempt to hasten. He ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... went to Ohio. When Jesse was sixteen he was sent to Maysville, Ky., and apprenticed to the tanner's trade, which he learned thoroughly, and made the chief occupation of his life. Soon after he reached his majority he started in business for himself in Ravenna, Portage County, Ohio. In a short time he removed to Point Pleasant, on the Ohio side of the Ohio River, about twenty miles above Cincinnati. Here he lived and prospered for many years, marrying, in 1821, Hannah Simpson, daughter of a farmer of the place in good circumstances. The Simpsons were also ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... governor, Hamilton, at Detroit, he at once prepared to reconquer the land. He had much greater forces at his command than Clark had; and in the fall of that year he came down to Vincennes by stream and portage, in a great fleet of canoes bearing five hundred fighting men-British regulars, French partizans, and Indians. The Vincennes Creoles refused to fight against the British, and the American officer who had been sent thither by Clark had no alternative but ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... them overestimate the distances they did—and they did overestimate them, very much. When we were tracking up on the Rat Portage, in the ice water, at the Arctic Circle, don't you remember we figured on double what we had actually done? A man's wife corrected him on how long they had been married. He said it was twenty years, and she said ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... days and was seldom laborious; for the river ran in long loops through the table-land, and with an easy current. But here and there shallow runs of rock made stairways for it from one level to another, and each of these miniature rapids compelled a portage; so that towards the end of the second day the young men had each a red shoulder spot chafed by the ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... also needful to drag the canoe out, flounder amidst boulders or through tangled forest with her contents, and then, hewing a path here and there with the axe, painfully drag her round; but portage after portage was left behind, and they were still fighting their way yard by yard upstream while the rain came down. Seaforth also knew that it often rains for several weeks in that country when the Chinook wind that melts the ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... when Major Robert Rogers visited Detroit in 1760, one of the French forts first occupied was Miami, situated on the Maumee river, at the commencement of the portage to the Wabash, near the spot where Fort Wayne was afterwards built. At the time of the outbreak of the Pontiac War this fort was held by Ensign Robert Holmes and twelve men. Holmes knew that his position was critical. In 1762 ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... the big 'Cut-off,'" Joe translates. "Lost on the portage. There was only one robe between 'em, so they rolled up in it, and the boy came on in the dark. Says they ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... into the Niger; consequently they are distinct streams, flowing in opposite directions. It is very probable indeed that their fountains may be in the same mountain chain, and at no great distance; and even that some of their branches may approach very near, so that merchants may, by an easy portage, convey commodities between them. Nay, it is not quite impossible that they may be united by some connecting channel, as the Amazons and the Oronooka are; but this seems ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... evening, when we again embarked, and arrived with our deserters at the establishment, where they never expected to see us again. Some Indians who had followed us in a canoe, up to the moment when we undertook the passage across the evening before, had followed the southern shore, and making the portage of the isthmus of Tongue Point, had happily arrived at Astoria. These natives, not doubting that we were lost, so reported us to Mr. M'Dougal; accordingly that gentleman was equally overjoyed and astonished at beholding us safely landed, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... and quail, have caused heavy losses in America as well as in European countries, and scientists have been carefully investigating the cause and the general nature of the maladies, as well as probable methods of prevention and cure. Mr. Geo. Atkinson, a well-known practical naturalist of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, writes as follows to a local paper on this subject, which I find quoted ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... to a river, about ten miles distant, which they called Wisconsin, and which they said flowed westward into the Father of Waters. They soon reached this stream. The Indians helped them to carry their canoes and effects across the portage. "We were then left," writes Marquette, "alone in that unknown country, in ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... but not one of them bearing any marks of former civilization, as on the shores of the first one which had sheltered us. We left the river two hundred and forty miles from where we had commenced our navigation, and, carrying our canoe over a portage of three miles, we launched it again upon one of the tributaries of the Buona Ventura, two hundred miles north-east from ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... warriors-free lances from other tribes, made a sudden and unexpected attack at the Cascades of the Columbia, midway between Vancouver and the Dalles, killed several citizens, women and children, and took possession of the Portage by besieging the settlers in their cabins at the Upper Cascades, and those who sought shelter at the Middle Cascades in the old military block-house, which had been built some years before as a place of refuge under ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Once a party of the railway officials got out and ran back; we thought some of our luggage had fallen out, but it seems one of the bridges over which we had just passed was rather shaky, and they went to investigate. If we had gone on last night we meant to be detached at Rat Portage, or Lake of the Woods, but now we go on to Winnipeg if, please God, we can ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... the fur trade geographical advantages lay with the French. They had two excellent routes from Montreal directly into the richest beaver lands of the continent. One of these, by way of the Ottawa and Mattawa rivers, had the drawback of an overland portage, but on the other hand the whole route was reasonably safe from interruption by Iroquois or English attack. The other route, by way of the upper St. Lawrence and the lakes, passed Cataraqui, Niagara, and Detroit on the way to Michilimackinac ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... excellent Scots' phrase, I made a moonlight flitting, a thing never dignified, but in my case unusually easy. As I had scarce a pair of boots worth portage, I deserted the whole of my effects without a pang. Dijon fell heir to Joan of Arc, the Standard Bearer, and the Musketeers. He was present when I bought and frugally stocked my new portmanteau; and it was at the door of the trunk shop that I took my leave of him, for my last ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... proportion to the red, that it is difficult to buy it separate. They make the white sell the red. If bought separately, it is from fifteen to sixteen louis the piece, new, and three livres the bottle, old. To give quality to the red, they mix one eighth of white grapes. Portage to Paris is seventy-two livres the piece, weighing six hundred pounds. There are but about one thousand pieces of both red and white, of the first quality, made annually. Vineyards are never rented here, nor are laborers in the vineyard hired by the year. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... miles. We had just crossed the portage from the main river to the Kennebacasis when we heard the slashers at work. We launched our canoe, and were heading for this side when they ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... or even had the name been overlooked once, she could not have escaped it. For Jonas Scobbs was the proprietor of Scobbs' Hotel in Falling Star City; of the Bellevue in Snakefence, of the Palace Hotel in Portage. ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... who lived at the "Portage" (modern Dewittville) at the time of the war, used to say, as Mr. Walsh many a time heard him relate, that his impression was that the Canadians did not hang upon the American rear after the fight, for had they done so, the American guns, which were all left behind, would ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... dishes. "You have eat, an' now you lissen. You have never hear' before of Concombre Bateese. An' zat ees me. See! Wit' these two hands I have choke' ze polar bear to deat'. I am strongest man w'at ees in all nort' countree. I pack four hundre' pound ovair portage. I crack ze caribou bones wit' my teeth, lak a dog. I run sixt' or hundre' miles wit'out stop for rest. I pull down trees w'at oder man cut wit' axe. I am not 'fraid of not'ing. You lissen? ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... at last it began to mingle with the clearer air and to thin out; in fact, I have good testimony to that effect. And early next morning it was blown by a wind like an ordinary fog-cloud all over Portage Plains. ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... outlines of the white house, was to hurry back to the Forecaster for help. Even as this thought came to him, however, Ross realized that such action might be of little use. Already the waters of the flood, swirling around the house, undermined it every moment, and it would take a long time to portage a boat all the way from the levee to the hollow, now in the ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... detain us on the island at Sick Dog until the arrival of his daughter, Papa Isbister thought fit to tell us the fate of Rainbow Pete, of whose physical deformity and thirst for gold we knew something already. Rainbow Pete had come to Mushrat Portage, playing his flute, at a time when preparations were being made to blast a road-bed through the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... in all its state and grandeur, however, it was necessary to witness an annual gathering at the great interior place of conference established at Fort William, near what is called the Grand Portage, on Lake Superior. Here two or three of the leading partners from Montreal proceeded once a year to meet the partners from the various trading posts of the wilderness, to discuss the affairs of the company during the preceding year, and to arrange ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... view a wall of water hurtling down in shimmering floods at the Chaudiere Falls. The high cliff to the left and countercurrent from the falls swirl the canoes over on the right side to the sandy flats where the lumber piles to-day defile the river. Here boats are once more hauled up for portage—a long portage, nine miles, all the way to the modern town of Aylmer, where the river becomes wide as a lake, Lake Du Chene of the oak forests. Here camp for the night was made, and leaks in the canoes mended with ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... south of the Lakes. Prosperous cities—Buffalo, Lockport, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady—sprang up all along the route. Cost of transport from Buffalo to New York was cut in four. The success of New York led Pennsylvania to build canals through the state to Pittsburg, with a portage railroad over the Alleghanies, while in the west canals were dug to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio, and Lake Michigan with the Illinois ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... set about building a fleet at St. John's. Vessels were sent out from England, for the purpose, which were taken to pieces below the Chambly rapids, brought across the portage, and put together again at St. John's. By working diligently, the British got their fleet ready to sail early ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... been falling all the morning and the bushes were wetter than water. On such a carry travel is slow. We had three trips to make each way before we could get the stuff and the canoes over. Then a short voyage across the lake, and another mile of the same sort of portage, after which we came out with the last load, an hour before sundown, on the shore of the Big Sabeo. This lake was quite different from the others; wide and open, with smooth sand-beaches all around ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... the return grew heavier as they progressed, and the time came when it was so hard to make headway against the powerful current that the effort was given up. The last few miles became a real portage, though when our friends were descending the river the passage could ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis |
