What's a "Portage", Anyway?

What’s a “portage”, anyway?

As we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary this year, the CVSR explores our history and the connection to the people and places of our home, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Northeast Ohio.

We’ve got so many references to the word “portage” within our local parks and places: Portage County, Portage Trail, Portage Path. You might know the word has roots in our history, but where did it come from and what does it mean?

William Henry Bartlett, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Native American peoples of this area developed a trail between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers—a place to transfer their canoes over land to reach these flowing “highways” of transportation of the time. A surveyor named Moses Warren traveled from Cleveland in 1797 to document the trail as a boundary of the Western Reserve, in a contested boundary line between European settlers and Indigenous peoples.

The word portage comes from the French word “to carry”. Early French explorers and fur traders in North America observed Native Americans carrying their canoes over land to avoid the many rapids and cascades of the waterways they used to transport goods. 

Many “portage trails” began as animal tracks that were established by cutting trees, widening paths, or even adding rails or slopes to ease transport of goods. Examples of these paths can be seen throughout the world, even in ancient Greek and Roman era ruins! 

Smaller canoes were carried upside down and rested on the shoulders. Many canoes had dips, called yokes, in the center strut to balance the canoe while portaging. 

A canoe with a curved "yoke", used for carrying .

Portages were the original "highways" of Northeast Ohio, transporting people and products throughout the region—while using signal trees to show the way! As the area was colonized and industry in the newly formed state of Ohio grew, the Ohio & Erie Canal was proposed and constructed in the 1820s and 30s to streamline transportation from this area to ease access to ports in New Orleans and New York City. Local villages grew along the path, establishing cities such as Peninsula and Canal Fulton.

Rail began to flourish in other parts of the country, and tracks built near the Ohio & Erie canal that would become the Valley Railway became the preferred transportation of goods through the area. In the modern era, with the shift to highways and automotive transportation, and the foundation of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the tracks have been transformed into the scenic heritage railroad you know and enjoy today! 

So really, it's all thanks to those original portages. 

In 1990, the Summit Metro Parks, along with the City of Akron and the Summit County Historical Society worked with William Yeck to commemorate the Portage Path with two large sculptures marking the terminus points of the Portage Path. The CVSR runs right next to the northern terminus!

Learn more about the history of our portages by visiting the links throughout this blog post (or the organizations themselves!) or taking a hike along the Ohio & Erie Towpath to view the Portage Path Sculptures this season.