Portage (canoe)
With Portage or portage a job is referred to the canoes or other boats to be transported over land to bypass an obstruction on the waterway. Such obstacles can be, for example, rapids , waterfalls , shallows or fallen trees. There are also portages between two (mostly close to each other) waterways. On waterways that are used economically, most of these portages have been replaced by canals with locks .
In addition to the location, the action or implementation of the transport is also referred to as portage.
Characteristics of a portage
Portage generally requires the unloading of the watercraft and the transport of all goods and boats over land. The distance often has to be covered many times, as not all goods that a boat can hold can be carried at once.
For trips in a group and short portages with good accessibility, there is no need to unload the canoe. The canoe is then carried by several (four or six) people together. Sometimes loaded canoes are strapped onto boat carts when portages are well developed . Usually the load capacity of the boat cart is only sufficient for empty canoes; if the boat is overloaded, the risk of damage increases excessively.
Many portages are only a few hundred meters long, but occasionally there are several kilometers, as some obstacles have to be circumvented over a wide area before a favorable starting point is available again. Depending on the terrain and the condition of the path, overcoming a portage with a short distance can take many hours.
History of origin
Portages existed on the medieval route from the Varangians to the Greeks from Scandinavia to Byzantium .
About 5,000 km of waterways enabled the trappers in North America to bring their goods to distant places. The Kaltag Portage is one of the oldest portages . From about 1722, French explorers and missionaries first used the Grand Portage in Minnesota . Around 1784 the Grand Portage was mainly used to transport the skins of the North West Company . So-called voyageurs were hired who knew their way around the wilderness and with canoes. In light rapids, portages were avoided with the help of canoe poling .
The Yukon-Kuskokwim Portage was mainly used in the 19th century.
Often times permanently inhabited settlements emerged on portages, which can be recognized by their names. Corresponding examples can be found in the definition of terms for portage .
Portages in the canoe marathon
The portages of obstacles is in Canoe Marathon adjusted as part of the competition today, although most race courses are designed as circuit with several rounds and contain no natural barriers more generally. In the early days of the sport until the 1980s, however, it was common to complete the entire route in one go, which on most bodies of water could not be done without overcoming weirs, sluices or other obstacles. Even when marathons were mostly run on circuits, the portages were retained. The reasons for this were, on the one hand, that the change from the boat to shore and back to the boat offers the spectators exciting battles for positions and, on the other hand, that this change prevents an overly one-sided burden on the athletes.
literature
- Bill Mason : Path of the Paddle. Key Porter Books, Toronto 1984, ISBN 0-919493-38-6 .
- Bill Mason: The Art of Canoeing. The Canadian. German adaptation by Arno Gatz and Elmar Engel. 6th edition. Gatz - Verlag für Sport, Natur und Freizeit, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-9803812-0-X
- Gary McGuffin, Joanie McGuffin: The fascination of canoeing. HEEL Verlag, Königswinter 2000, ISBN 3-89365-849-1 .