The Challenge of the Portage
by Tony Baroni (continued from page 3)

It's not really that bad, in fact, more often than not, they are, as canoeists generally are, very friendly and accommodating.  But I still don't like sharing a portage and when someone else is landing about the same time as I, I always want to be first: first to land, first to get a spot claimed on the other side of the portage, first to be in the water on the next lake.  After all, there may be only one campsite left over there and I want first choice.  So getting over a portage quickly and efficiently is a good thing.

It doesn't take much thought to discover a major flaw with the normal technique of the double portage: The portage is, say one half mile long; you carry your canoe over, you walk back, you then carry your pack over.  That's three trips over the half mile portage.  The half mile turned into a mile and a half.  Hiking back, the extra half mile is considered by some to be a rest break!  It doesn't take too many portages to make one think of things like building a cedar strip canoe, buying a kevlar canoe, or changing vacations plans to just go lie in the sun in the Caribbean next year.  The obvious solution is to - No!, forget the Bahamas - compress all the agony into one single trip: one third as long, twice as grueling.  Or is it four times as grueling?  Grueling must increase as the square of the weight.  [Baroni's zeroth law of portaging.]

I came to this portage with no one around.  It was time to practice my single carry technique.  I pulled my pack out and packed away miscellaneous items; camera, map, and the raincoat I had on earlier against the morning mist.  Nearly everything was packed away in one compartment or another of my new pack.  The spare paddle was secured into the canoe, the other paddle stood upright against a bush near the portage trail , the life jacket I buckled around the back seat counterbalancing the paddle.  I carried the boat up to a tree where I could rest it in a crotch.  It was a little bow heavy yet, so I took the one thing that I had neglected to pack away, my rain pants, and I stuffed them up and under the stern deck of the canoe.  I lit my pipe, shouldered my pack, and got beneath the canoe.  A few good puffs on the pipe cleared away most of the mosquitoes, then I could concentrate on gingerly lifting the boat.  It rested neatly between my neck and my pack and I experimented and adjusted things finding that I could lift it up off my shoulders and place it on the pack which didn't feel bad but made me worry that the shoulder straps might tear off the pack.  I opted for carrying the thwart directly on my shoulders as usual and trudged onward.  I grabbed my paddle resting against the bush to use as a walking stick and stepped out.

Over the course of this trip, I found that I could carry both pack and canoe for about fifty rods on average, then I had to set it down and take a break.  The portages in the Boundary Waters are measured, not in yards or meters or miles, but in rods.  A rod is sixteen and a half feet, about the length of a canoe, so that is the measure they use.  A more practical measure is the pipe.  That's the distance one travels while smoking on bowlful of his pipe.  That's the measure the voyagers used.  Practical, maybe - accuracy, however, may be a problem.

While the Boundary Waters lack signs indicating portages, one big advantage over Algonquin Park is that many of the portages have canoe rests every fifty rods or so.  These are simply a pole, tied or nailed horizontally between two trees, about seven feet off the ground near the portage path.  One walks up to the rest, lays the bow of the canoe on the pole, puts the stern on the ground, and steps out from underneath.  Your pack then catches on the thwart as you step out and the canoe comes off the rest and crashes down upon you.  Good thing no one saw me - but now, why do I write this?