Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent

by Archer Butler Hulbert

There may be no better way to introduce the subject of the famous old portages of America, than to ask the reader to walk, in fancy, along what may be called a “Backbone of America”—that watershed which runs from the North Atlantic seaboard to the valley of the Mississippi River. It will prove a long, rough, circuitous journey, but at the end the traveler will realize the meaning of the word “portage,” which in our day has almost been forgotten in common parlance, and will understand what it meant in the long ago, when old men dreamed dreams and young men saw visions which will never be dreamed or seen again in human history. As we start westward from New Brunswick and until we reach the sweeping tides of the Mississippi we shall see, on the right hand and on the left, the gleaming lakes or half-hidden brooks and rivulets which flow northward to the St. Lawrence or the Great Lakes, or southward to the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. On the high ground between the heads of these water-courses our path lies.

For the greater portion of our journey we shall find neither road nor pathway; here we shall climb and follow long, ragged mountain crests, well nigh inaccessible, in some spots never trod by human foot save the wandering hunter’s; there we shall drop down to a lower level and find that on our watershed run roads, canals, and railways. At many points in our journey we shall find a perfect network of modern routes of travel, converging perhaps on a teeming city which owes its growth and prosperity to its geographical situation at a strategic point on the watershed we are following. And where we find the largest population and the greatest activity today, just there, we may rest assured, human activity was equally noticeable in the old days.

As we pass along we must bear in mind the story of days gone by, as well as the geography which so much influenced it. It is to the earliest days of our country’s history that our attention is attracted—to the days when the French came to the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, and sought to know and possess the interior of the continent, to which each shining tributary of the northern water system offered a passage way. Passing the question how and why New France was founded on the St. Lawrence, it is enough for us to know she was there before the seventeenth century dawned, and that her fearless voyageurs, undaunted by the rushing tides of that great stream, were pushing on to a conquest of the temperate empire which lay to the southward. Here in treacherous eddies, the foaming rapids, and the mighty current of that river, they were soon taught the woodland art of canoeing, by the most savage of masters; and in canoes the traders, trappers, missionaries, explorers, hunters, and pioneers were soon stemming the current of every stream that flowed from the south.

But these streams found their sources in this highland we are treading. Heedless of the interruption, these daring men pushed their canoes to the uttermost navigable limit, and then shouldered them and crossed the watershed. Once over the “portage,” and their canoes safely launched, nothing stood between them and the Atlantic Ocean. It is these portage paths for which we shall look as we proceed westward. As we pass, one by one, these slight roadways across the backbone of the continent, whether they be miles in length or only rods, they must speak to us as almost nothing else can, today, of the thousand dreams of conquest entertained by the first Europeans who traversed them, of the thousand hopes that were rising of a New France richer and more glorious than the old.

Advancing westward from the northern Atlantic we find ourselves at once between the headwaters of the St. John River on the south and sparkling Etchemin on the north, and we cross the slight track which joins these important streams. Not many miles on we find ourselves between the Kennebec on the south and the Chaudière on the north, and cross the pathway between them which has been traversed by tens of thousands until even the passes in the rocks are worn smooth. The valley of the Richelieu heads off the watershed and turns it southwest; we accordingly pass down the Green Mountain range, across the historic path from Otter Creek to the Connecticut, and below Lake George we pass northward across the famous road from the extremity of that lake to the Hudson. Striking northward now we head the Hudson in the Adirondacks and come down upon the strategic watershed between its principal tributary, the Mohawk, and Lake Ontario. The watershed dodges between Wood Creek, which flows northward, and the Mohawk, at Rome, New York, where Fort Stanwix guarded the portage path between these streams. Pressing westward below Seneca Lake and the Genessee, our course takes us north of Lake Chautauqua, where we cross the path over which canoes were borne from Lake Erie to Lake Chautauqua, and, a few miles westward, we cross the portage path from Lake Erie to Rivière aux Bœufs, a tributary of the Allegheny. Pursuing the height of land westward we skirt the winding valley of the Cuyahoga and at Akron, Ohio, find ourselves crossing the portage between that stream and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum. As we go on, the valley of the Sandusky turns up southward until we pass between its headwaters and just north of the Olentangy branch of the Scioto.

We face north again and look over the low-lying region of the Black Swamp until the Maumee Valley bars our way and we turn south to cross the historic portage near Fort Wayne, Indiana, which connects the Maumee and the Wabash. By a zig-zag course we approach the basin of Lake Michigan and pass deftly on the height of ground between the St. Joseph flowing northward and the Kankakee flowing southward. Here we cross another famous portage path. Circling the extremity of Lake Michigan by a wide margin, our course leads us to a passage way between the Chicago River and the Illinois. Here we find another path. The Wisconsin River basin turns us northward now, and near Madison, Wisconsin, we run between the head of the Fox and the head of the Wisconsin and cross the famed portage path which connected them. Just beyond lies the Mississippi, and if we should wish to avoid it we would be compelled to bear far north among the Canadian lakes.

Thus from the Atlantic coast we have passed to the Mississippi without crossing one single stream of water; but we have crossed at least twelve famous pathways between streams that flow north and south—routes of travel, which, when studied, give us an insight into the story of days long passed which cannot be gained in any other way. Over these paths pushed the first explorers, the men who, first of Europeans, saw the Ohio and Mississippi. Possessing a better knowledge of their routes and their experiences while voyaging in an unknown land, we realize better the impetuosity of their ambition and the meaning of their discoveries to them. We can almost see them hurrying with uplifted eyes over these little paths, tortured by the luring suggestions of the glimmering waterways in the distance. Whether it is that bravest of brave men, La Salle, crossing from Lake Erie to the Allegheny, or Marquette striding over the little path to the stream which should carry him to the Mississippi, or Céloron bearing the leaden plates which were to claim the Ohio for France up the difficult path from Lake Erie to Lake Chautauqua, there is no moment in these heroes’ lives more interesting than this. These paths crossed the dividing line between what was known and what was unknown. Here on the high ground, with eyes intent upon the vista below, faint hearts were fired to greater exertions, and dreamers heavy under the dead weight of physical exhaustion again grew hopeful at the camping place on the portage path.

Of all whose ambitions led them over these little paths, none appeal more strongly to us than the daring, patient missionaries who here wore out their lives for the Master. Each portage was known to them, better, perhaps, than to any other class of men. Here they encamped on their pilgrimages, though, from being spots of vantage which excited them onward, they were rather the line of demarcation between the near and the distant fields of service, and all of them full of trial and suffering and seeming defeat. Nowhere in the North can the heroism of the Catholic missionaries be more plainly read today in any material objects than in the deep-worn, half-forgotten portage paths which lay along their routes. The nobility of their ambitions, compared with those of explorers, traders, and military and civil officials, has ever been conspicuous, but the full measure of their self-sacrifice cannot be realized until we know better the intense physical suffering they here endured. If the study of portage paths results only in a deeper appreciation of the bravery of these black-robed fathers, it will be worth far more than its cost.

In this connection it is proper to make a restriction; portage paths not only joined the heads of streams flowing in opposite directions, but were also land routes between rivers and lakes, between lakes, and even between rivers running in the same direction. They not only connected the Etchemin and St. John, and the Chaudière and Kennebec, but also the St. John and the Kennebec, and the Kennebec and Penobscot. Many portages joined the lesser lakes; for example, such as Lake Simcoe, lying between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay, or Lake Chautauqua lying between Lake Erie and the Allegheny River. The most common form of portage, however, was the pathway on a river’s bank around rapids and waterfalls which impeded the voyageur’s way. These were very important on such a turbulent river as the St. Lawrence, and on smaller rivers such as the Scioto or Rivière aux Bœufs which were almost dry in certain places in midsummer.[1] In midwinter, with ice running or blocking the course on small streams, these carrying places were as important as in the dry season.

The clearest pictures preserved for us of travelers on these first highways are, happily, to be found in the letters of the Jesuit missionaries who knew them so well, and whose heroism it were a sin to forget. Without attempting to distinguish the various personalities of these brave men, let us take some descriptions of their routes from their own lips.