Friendly Portages

 Friendly Portages

by Walter E. Paul

To really get close to nature where you can best observe the intimate affairs of wild things of the forest, let me give you a tip. Take a canoe and travel as the Indians traveled from time immemorial, over lakes and streams and portages back into the virgin hinterland.

Scared? What of? You have a good map, a compass, grub, tent, blankets, a congenial companion. Get out there and really live. You will be surprised when you return to find out how little the world of business and everyday cares really missed you.

Some timid souls class portaging as an evil, something to be avoided if possible, like a skunk in the trail ahead. Still, like the skunk, it need not be classed as an evil if approached in the proper spirit, with understanding and caution acquired through past experiences. Skill and know-how are just as  important in portaging as in casting with a rod, or in handling a gun when the birds break cover.

Every portage has its own peculiarities. Each time we encounter it the better we know it, its faults, virtues, risks and points of interest. Some are steep and rocky. Scanty footholds must be carefully chosen. The slippery places must be treated with respect to avoid a fall. Overhanging branches bear watching to keep them from tangling with the canoe or packs on our backs. Other portages are more level and may lead through short grass or heavy moss, cool and springy underfoot with perhaps tamarack poles or logs to walk upon over the boggy spots. They all have a definite starting point and a definite destination with a well marked course between,- more than can be said of the lives of some folks who come into the woods to use them, but find there nothing of beauty or interest.

Don’t try to hurry a portage. They just wont be hurried. People in a hurry have no business on canoe trips anyway. They should go elsewhere by car or train or by any other means suiting their fancy, where they can still have noise, traffic problems, telephone calls, business worries and stomach ulcers.

On an early autumn day with the first splashes of crimson and yellow tinting the forest, a portage is a convenient place to loiter, brew a pot of coffee, eat a sandwich and smooth the paddling kinks out of your arms and back while you get acquainted with some of the wild folks on every hand. It yields a wealth of interest to anyone who will take the time and energy to prowl around a bit and observe. Stop and examine the trail for indications of other travelers before you. Note carefully the many signs of wild life and the stories they tell as you examine tracks, burrows, chewed up toad-stools and pine cones. Squirrels, chipmunks, chickadees, bluejays and many others curious about the newcomers will venture out to investigate if you are quiet and make no sudden movements. A startled deer will often return out of idle curiosity to see what frightened it in the first place, if it is upwind from you and hears no suspicious noises. Often bear or even moose are seen along the portage trail. Don’t let that rotten log broken wide open puzzle you. A bear has been gathering succulent grubs and ants from it. You would do the same  if you liked them as well as he, and cared as little about the rising price of groceries. In some tall poplar tree you may spy a porcupine making a meal of the smooth white bark of the upper branches. If you have a good nose you may even smell him before you see him. If you hear a loud report like a firecracker near the shore don’t be alarmed. Some wise old beaver has hit the water a crack with his flat heavy tail announcing to his amphibious kin that suspicious characters are abroad.

To really relax, try stretching out on your back on a bed of dry needles under some tall Norway pine and listen to the breeze as it plays through the long upper branches silhoutted against the billowy clouds hanging in the blue above you. See what interest you can find in this one tree. I once counted four cedar waxwing nests in one Norway pine, doing just that.  Now shut your eyes, inhale deeply and see how many trees, shrubs and plants you can identify by smell alone,- smells you wont catch from an open office window in town. Under the trees are to be found many kinds of moss, lichens, ferns and tree seedlings of white  and Norway pine, spruce, balsam and cedar, just emerging from the moist carpet of dead leaves and other decaying vegetable matter.

But, we are supposed to be making a portage, so let us get on with it before we are overcome with laziness, or our eyelids begin to droop with sleep induced by a draught from the potent keg of some invisible Rip Van Winkle grinning mischievously at us from the deep shadows of a nearby cedar swamp.

How to carry a canoe on his back for the first time may puzzle the novice. It looks awkward and difficult until he gets used to the feel and swing of it, but here is where some of the know-how comes in. One man and one only must now handle the canoe. After it is taken from the water the yoke is clamped firmly to the gunwales a little forward of amidship. The person to carry it now stands beside the canoe facing the stern. Grasping the yoke with both hands he lifts, gives an upward swing bringing the bow off the ground at the same time turning the canoe upside down and steps under it as he turns to face the bow, then lets the yoke settle gently down on his shoulders. If the yoke has been properly placed the stern will now come easily off the ground and the carrier strides away. His partner must now keep hands off and remember never, never, under any circumstances touch the canoe until it is again laid safely on the ground. To touch it while it is on a man’s shoulders could easily unbalance him and cause a fall resulting in a damaged canoe, or possibly broken bones for the carrier, a disaster in canoe country. With a little practice the partner can easily carry a loaded Duluth style pack sack on his back with a large bedding roll on top, and paddles, fishing tackle, camera etc. in his hands. On long trips there will be a big enough outfit to make a double over the portage necessary for both partners. On shorter trips, with less grub and equipment once over may do. 

On frequently travelled canoe routes portages are usually marked on good maps and also on shore by the State Forestry signs at both ends of the trail. Once in searching a shoreline for a portage marked on the map we found the Forestry sign nailed to a tree but no portage, just a flooded trail over which we continued to paddle through the brush and around trees and rocks in a forest of balsam, poplar and birch. Once we had to stop to maneouver the canoe over a large poplar tree beavers had fallen across the way. Finally we came to the top of a large beaver dam holding back an eight foot head of water. Carrying our outfit over this dam we continued on a lower level into another flooded area until a quarter mile beyond we came  to a second dam built where the river emptied into a lake.

Good camp spots are often found on one or both ends of a portage trail and if you find another party camped or enroute it makes a pleasant break in an otherwise solitary trip. There are questions and answers from both parties as to where they are going, where they are from, if they have seen big game or have had good fishing. Often the party going further into the woods will have letters stamped, addressed and ready to be given to any outgoing party they meet, to be mailed at the first opportunity.

One evening after paddling all afternoon in a steady downpour of rain, my son and I made camp on a portage on one of the old canoe routes of the early French and English explorers. It was not a good place to camp but the best we could find before darkness overtook us. After supper I found most of our blankets too wet for comfort although the rain had stopped. I decided to sit out the night by the fire hoping to be dry by morning. Going into the nearby dripping woods I gathered wood for the night, while every bush and sapling I touched spilled a cold shower upon me. Wrapped in one of the drier blankets and calling good night to my boy already half asleep in the tent, I settled down in a dry spot, warm and cozy near the fire with a windbreak to my back.

What voices I heard that night. A loon far out on the lake occasionally let out his crazy cackle like a cry of derision at my lonely vigil. Twice a fox on the wooded hill behind me broke into an excited yapping as if in protest of the mournful hooting of an owl at the other end of the lake. Long after midnight, as my eyes grew heavy watching the embers burn low in my little fireplace, I stared  into the gloom across the lake and with a little imagination seemed to see the faint wraiths of long departed voyageurs in their heavily laden birch bark canoes sweep silently by in the pre-dawn mist. I listened to a restless chipmunk scratching in the wet hazel brush and imagined I could hear the soft suffle of moccasined feet slithering by in the dark undergrowth on some evil mission.

When the first gray streaks of dawn appeared in the east and the wall-eyes and northerns began to splash, the wraiths and moccasined feet suddenly disappeared and my mind turned to the thought of fish sizzling in the pan for breakfast. After all, with the sun about to break over the pine clad hills to the east, this too had been a friendly portage, one to be enjoyed like so many others.