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Portaging Canoes in Algonquin Park

Portage refers to the practice of carrying a canoe or other boat over land to avoid an obstacle on the water route (such as rapids or a waterfall in a river), or between two bodies of water. A place where this carrying occurs is also called a portage, while a person doing the carrying is called a porter.

Over time, depending on the importance of the portages, they were sometimes upgraded to canals with locks, and even portage railways. Portaging generally required unloading the vessel and carrying vessel and contents across the portage in multiple trips. Voyageurs would often employ a tump line on their head to carry a load armfree on their back. Small canoes can be portaged by carrying them inverted over one's shoulders and the center thwart may be designed in the style of a yoke to facilitate this.

Portages can range in length from dozens of meters to many kilometers in length (the famous 19 km Methye Portage being a good example), and often cover hilly or difficult terrain. Most portages are the result of elevation changes, either changes in elevation from one body of water to another, or changes in elevation of the land in between. This results in most portages involving some measure of climbing or descending. However some, such as Mavis Grind in Shetland exist on an Isthmus where it is easier or safer to transport a boat over-land than round it. In these cases the climbing or descending required is often minimal.

Diolkos, from the Greek dia (across) and holkos (portage) – was an artificial trackway, resembling a modern portage railway, constructed in ancient times to enable boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth, a neck of land 4 miles (6.4 km) wide at its narrowest, which separated the Gulf of Corinth from the Saronic Gulf.

In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, the Viking merchants-adventurers exploited a network of waterways in Eastern Europe, with portages connecting the four most important rivers of the region: Volga, Western Dvina, Dnieper, and Don. The portages of present-day Russia were vital for the Varangian commerce with the Orient and Byzantium.

At the most important portages (such as Gnezdovo) there were trade outposts inhabited by a mixture of Norse merchants and native population. The Khazars built the fortress of Sarkel to guard a key portage between the Volga and the Don. After the Varangian and Khazar power in Eastern Europe waned, Slavic merchants continued to use the portages along the Volga trade route and the Dnieper trade route. The names of the towns Volokolamsk and Vyshny Volochek may be translated as "the portage on the Lama River" and "the upper portage", respectively (the word "volok" means "portage" in Russian, derived from the verb "to drag").

Places where portaging occurred often became temporary and then permanent settlements (such as Hull, Quebec, and Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario). Sometimes the settlements were named for being on a portage, particularly in North America. Some places so named are:

• Cranberry Portage, Manitoba
• Grand Portage, Minnesota
• Portage, Wisconsin
• Portage la Prairie, Manitoba
• Portage, Michigan
• Portage, Indiana, was named so indirectly, since there has been never any portage
• Portage, Pennsylvania

Portages played an important part in the economy of some African societies. For instance, Bamako was chosen as the capital of Mali because it is located on the Niger River near the rapids that divide the Upper and Middle Niger Valleys.