Dictionary:
port·age (pôr'tĭj, pōr'-, pôr-täzh')  |
To transport or travel by portage: canoed and portaged the goods; portaging around the rapids.
[Middle English, from Old French, from porter, to carry, from Latin portāre.]
| Word Origin: portage |
Not only did we paddle our own Canoe (1555), we carried it too. The French, the first Europeans to explore by canoe in North America, gave us a word for it: portage. It is explained in Louis Hennepin's New Discovery of a Vast Country in America of 1698: "We...brought up our Bark to the great Rock of Niagara,...where we were oblig'd to make our Portage; that is, to carry over-land our Canow's and Provisions, and other Things, above the great Fall of the River, which interrupts the Navigation.... The Portage was two leagues long."
Captain Meriweather Lewis found need for the term in his 1805 journal of the Lewis and Clark exploration of the Missouri River and the Northwest: "I...ordered him to keep sufficiently near the river to observe its situation in order that he might be enabled to give Capt. Clark an idea of the point at which it would be best to halt to make our portage."
With little change, the term has survived in recreational canoeing today. "When you canoe a river like the Wisconsin," says a 1997 report, for example, "you need as much information as possible to help you plan a safe, successful journey. You'll portage around numerous dams, and you need to plan your camping according to what islands are available."
| Word Tutor: portage |
We needed to portage the canoes several times during the journey down the river.
| Wikipedia: Portage |
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Portage refers to the practice of carrying a canoe or other boat over land to avoid an obstacle on the water route (such as rapids or a waterfall in a river), or between two bodies of water (such as over an isthmus). A place where this carrying occurs is also called a portage, while a person doing the carrying is called a porter.
Over time, depending on the importance of the portages, they were sometimes upgraded to canals with locks, and even portage railways. Portaging generally required unloading the vessel and carrying vessel and contents across the portage in multiple trips. Voyageurs would often employ a tump line on their head to carry a load armfree on their back. Small canoes can be portaged by carrying them inverted over one's shoulders and the center thwart may be designed in the style of a yoke to facilitate this.
Portages can range in length from dozens of meters to many kilometers in length (the famous 19 km Methye Portage being a good example), and often cover hilly or difficult terrain. Most portages are the result of elevation changes, either changes in elevation from one body of water to another, or changes in elevation of the land in between. This results in most portages involving some measure of climbing or descending. However some, such as Mavis Grind in Shetland exist on an Isthmus where it is easier or safer to transport a boat over-land than round it. In these cases the climbing or descending required is often minimal.
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.
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 to 8.5 km long roadway was a rudimentary form of railway,[1] and operated from ca. 600 BC until the middle of the 1st century AD.[2] [3] [4] [5] [1]
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").
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). Sometimes the settlements were named for being on a portage, particularly in North America. Some places so named are:
Portages existed in a number of locations where an isthmus existed that the local Māori could drag of 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.
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| Translations: Portage |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - transport, transportomkostninger, slæbested, hyre
v. tr., -
v. intr. - transportere
Nederlands (Dutch)
transport, vervoer over land van schip tot schip, over land vervoeren
Français (French)
n. - port, frais de port
v. tr. - payer les frais de port
v. intr. - payer les frais de port
Deutsch (German)
n. - Tragen, Transportkosten, Portage
v. - über eine Portage tragen
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - δίολκος, ολκός, μεταφορά πλοίου δια ξηράς
v. - χρησιμοποιώ δίολκο
Italiano (Italian)
trasporto, trasportare
Português (Portuguese)
n. - transporte (m), carreto (m)
v. - transportar
Русский (Russian)
переноска, перевозка, переносить, перевозить
Español (Spanish)
n. - porteo, transporte
v. tr. - transportar, portar
v. intr. - portar, hacer transporte de
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - transport, forsling, transportkostnad, drag(sträcka)
v. - transportera båtar på land förbi forsar
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
搬运费, 水陆联运, 货运, 把转到陆上运输, 经陆上运输绕过, 转到陆上运输
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 搬運費, 水陸聯運, 貨運
v. tr. - 把轉到陸上運輸, 經陸上運輸繞過
v. intr. - 轉到陸上運輸
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 운반, 연수육로
v. tr. - 연수 육로로 운반하다
v. intr. - 연육수로를 가로질러 운반되다
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 運搬, 運賃, 貨物, 連水陸路
v. - 連水陸路で運ぶ
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) حمل, نقل (فعل) يحمل, ينقل
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - הובלה ימית, דמי הובלה ימית
v. tr. - הוביל מטען בים
v. intr. - השיט ספינת-מטען
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Origin. America in So Many Words, by David K.Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf. Copyright © 1997 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Portage". Read more |
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