Packing and Portaging

by Dillon Wallace

Let me therefore urge the adoption of the tump line for all portage work where fifty pounds or more must be transported. No experienced packer will use harness. Harness packing is indeed indicative of the tenderfoot who has never learned how, unless on long cross country tramps with light loads.

But on a canoe trip, if one would make progress, big loads must be resorted to. For instance, if the canoeist has a two mile portage to negotiate and one hundred pounds of duffle he has but two miles to walk if he carries all his duffle at once, but if he makes two loads of it he must walk six miles. With the hundred pound load the portage may easily be covered in one hour. With fifty pound loads three hours will be consumed, for there will be time lost in making up the second pack.

Axes, guns and extra paddles may be thrust under the thongs of the tump line, or carried in the hand. Never portage a rifle with a cartridge in the chamber, and never portage a loaded shotgun. To disregard this advice will be to take an unnecessary and foolhardy risk.

Save in a rather stiff breeze, one man can carry a canoe weighing less than one hundred pounds nearly as easily as two can carry it. There is one best way of doing everything, and the best and most practical way to carry a canoe is the Indian's way.

Tie one end of a stout string or thong securely to the middle thwart close to the gunwale, and the other end to the same thwart close to the opposite gunwale with the string stretched taut from end to end of the thwart and on top of it. Slip the blades of two paddles, lying side by side, under the string, the paddle handles lying on the forward thwart. With the handles as close together as they will lie, bind them with a piece of rope or thong to the center of the forward thwart.

Spread the blades upon the middle thwart sufficiently wide apart to admit your head between them. Take a position on the left side of the canoe facing the stern. Just forward of the middle thwart grasp the gunwale on the opposite or right side of the canoe in your left hand and the gunwale on the near or left side in your right hand, and, lifting the canoe over your head, let the flat side of the paddles directly forward of the middle thwart rest upon the shoulders, your head between them. It will be found that though you faced the stern in lifting the canoe you are now facing the bow, and with the bow slightly elevated the canoe can be carried with ease and a view of the trail ahead will not be shut out.

Should the flat paddle blades resting upon the shoulders be found uncomfortable, as they doubtless will at the end of the first two or three hundred yards, a Pontiac shirt or sweater will serve as a protecting pad.

Outfitters offer for sale yokes, pneumatic pads and contrivances of various sorts as protections for the shoulders, but these contrivances elevate the canoe from two to four inches above the shoulders and this increases the difficulty of steadying it on rough trail. The sweater or Pontiac shirt eases the cutting effect of the paddles just as well as any of the special portaging pads, and the canoe can be handled more easily with it. Besides it makes one less thing to look after.

In a strong breeze it is often difficult for one man to handle a canoe, for the wind striking it on the side will turn the portager around and he will find it impossible to keep his course in spite of his best efforts. If the portage is a short one—two or three hundred yards—the canoe may be carried very well, one man with the bow the other with the stern upon a shoulder, the canoe on its side with the bottom next the portagers' heads, that they may easily grasp the gunwale in one hand and steady the canoe with the other.

This position will soon be found exceedingly tiresome, and on portages exceeding two or three hundred yards the paddles should be arranged with the blades on the after thwart and the handles lashed to the center of the middle thwart. With this arrangement one man carries exactly as when portaging the canoe alone, save that he stands under the canoe just forward of the after thwart instead of the middle thwart, while the other man carries the bow upon one shoulder. This is the easiest method of two-man portaging of which I know.