"Portage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... north and west. War between the nations may very likely arouse the spirit of the savages, yet rumors of Indian outbreak are always on the lips of the settlers. Burns himself was upon his return westward, and did not seem greatly troubled lest he fail to get through. He claimed to live at Chicagou Portage, wherever that may be. I only know it is the ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... a lively journey. Didn't know I could like roughing-it so well. And it was real roughing-it, pretty much. Oh, not dangerous at all, but rather vigorous. I had to canoe up three hundred miles of a shallow river, with one Indian guide, making a portage every ten miles or so, and we got tipped over in the rapids now and then—the Big Chief almost got drowned once—and we camped at night in the original place where they invented mosquitoes—and one ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... New Portage, O., dealer in general merchandise and country produce, had been in business three years, but had never, until the present occasion, visited the city where the larger share of his purchases ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... make up new dog trains—Cerf-Vola never gave out—and partake of the tender steak of the wood-buffalo. For many days I had regularly used snow-shoes, and now I seldom sought the respite of the sled, but tramped behind the dogs. Over marsh and frozen river and portage we lagged till, on March 6, a vast lake opened out upon our gaze, on the rising shore of which were the clustered buildings of a large fort, with a red flag flying above them in the cold north blast. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... from my wallet and handed it to her. "Much larger, you see," I said. "It almost bisects the peninsula. Only the Sturgeon portage, about a mile long, separates it from the lake of the Illinois. We must be near ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... Philip in his explanations. He had had to leave the sail unsewn, was all he had to say, but he embroidered on this simple fact so largely that Joseph lost patience and began to tell them he had come to Galilee, Pilate wishing him to add the portage of wheat from Moab to the trade already started in figs and dates. So Pilate is in the business, Peter ejaculated, for Peter did not think that a Jew should have any dealings with Gentiles, and this opinion, abruptly ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... lived she could affirm the rights of a white man's daughter, the rights of the daughter of a pioneer who had helped to make the West; and her pride in him had given a glow to her cheek and a spring to her step which drew every eye. In the chief street of Portage la Drome men would stop their trafficking and women nudge one another when she passed, and wherever she went she stirred interest, excited admiration, or aroused prejudice—but the prejudice did not matter so long as her father, Joel ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... seen that when Major Robert Rogers visited Detroit in 1760, one of the French forts first occupied was Miami, situated on the Maumee river, at the commencement of the portage to the Wabash, near the spot where Fort Wayne was afterwards built. At the time of the outbreak of the Pontiac War this fort was held by Ensign Robert Holmes and twelve men. Holmes knew that his position ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... if they do not respect my grey head, neither will they spare your young ones. In such case, make yourselves a good canoe—a dug-out [FN: Log canoe.] will do—and go down the lake till you are stopped by the rapids; [FN: Crook's Rapids.] make a portage there; but as your craft is too weighty to carry far, e'en leave her and chop out another, and go down to the Falls; [FN: Heeley's Falls, on the Trent.] then, if you do not like to be at any further trouble, you ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... float down a swift river in a bark canoe is the most agreeable; and when paddled by Indians the canoe is the perfection of a vessel for smooth-water navigation. Where there are three inches of water she can go—where there is none, a man can carry her round the portage on his back. Her buoyancy enables her to carry a heavy load, and, though frail, the elasticity of her material admits of many a blow and pinch which would seriously damage a heavier vessel. The rifle and axe of the backwoodsman, the canoe ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... had run up. There were days when they made fifteen miles, and days when they made a dozen. And there was one bad stretch where in two days they covered nine miles, being compelled to turn their backs three times on the river and to portage sled and outfit ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... just crossed the portage from the main river to the Kennebacasis when we heard the slashers at work. We launched our canoe, and were heading for this side when they blazed at ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... control of the fur trade geographical advantages lay with the French. They had two excellent routes from Montreal directly into the richest beaver lands of the continent. One of these, by way of the Ottawa and Mattawa rivers, had the drawback of an overland portage, but on the other hand the whole route was reasonably safe from interruption by Iroquois or English attack. The other route, by way of the upper St. Lawrence and the lakes, passed Cataraqui, Niagara, and Detroit on the way to Michilimackinac or to Green ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... by the engineer's touching a spring the whole force of the compressed air takes possession of the tongs, and the passenger is snatched bald-headed, metaphorically speaking. For instance, a passenger gets on the platform at Portage, and the ice tongs grasp him or her securely. If he or she pays the fare, the door is opened, the tongs release their hold, and the person is allowed to enter. But if the engineer should find that they had no money, or that their ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... New Portage, a village about sixty miles south-west from Kirtland was selected as a gathering place, and from this point on the 8th of May, 1834, one hundred and fifty men started for Missouri. They were organized in regular army order, having officers to see that everything ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... bushes were wetter than water. On such a carry travel is slow. We had three trips to make each way before we could get the stuff and the canoes over. Then a short voyage across the lake, and another mile of the same sort of portage, after which we came out with the last load, an hour before sundown, on the shore of the Big Sabeo. This lake was quite different from the others; wide and open, with smooth sand-beaches all around it. The little hills which encircled it had been burned ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... bend to the oar! Merry is the life of the gay voyageur. The brave, jolly boatman,—he never is afraid When he meets at the portage a red, forest maid, A Huron, or a Cree, or a blooming Chippeway; And he marks his trail with the bois brules. So pull away, boatmen; bend to the oar; Merry is the life of the gay voyageur. Home again! home again! bend to the oar! ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... marshy and oats-choked Fox River, constantly widening to little lakes and receding to a throat of a channel, brought the explorers to the portage, or carrying place. The canoes then had to be unloaded, and both cargo and boats carried overland to a bend of the Miscousing, which was the Indian name for Wisconsin River. "This portage," says a traveler who afterwards followed that way, "is half a league in length, and half of that is a kind ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... directions. It is very probable indeed that their fountains may be in the same mountain chain, and at no great distance; and even that some of their branches may approach very near, so that merchants may, by an easy portage, convey commodities between them. Nay, it is not quite impossible that they may be united by some connecting channel, as the Amazons and the Oronooka are; but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... and in about twenty minutes reached the next canon. Landing on a rocky shore at its commencement, we ascended the ridge to reconnoitre. Portage was out of the question. So far as we could see, the jagged rocks pointed out the course of the canon, on a winding line of seven or eight miles. It was simply a narrow, dark chasm in the rock; and ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... account of the furs brought in, to distribute recompense, and to enforce the simple law. Attached to this room on the south was the great store-room, packed with those articles of merchandise most likely to seem of worth in savage eyes and brought, with such infinite labour by canoe and portage, from those favoured lower points whose waters admitted the yearly ships—namely, rifles and ammunition, knives of all sorts, bolts of bright cloth and beads of the colour of the rainbow, great iron kettles such as ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... communication for trading purposes between Lake Erie and the Ohio river, by cleaning out the channels of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas riverspretentiousssage of boats and batteaux; a wagon road, seven miles long, from Old Portage to New Portage, making the connection between the two rivers. It was supposed that twelve thousand dollars would suffice for the purpose, and the Legislature authorized a lottery by which the funds were to be raised. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin |
