The Challenge of the Portage

My eyes snapped opened to see only darkness.  They opened yet wider - all the better to hear.  A sound had awakened me.  Something had splashed in the water I was camping near.  Perhaps it was just a fish.  Perhaps it was a bear.  Are there supposed to be wolves in the Boundary Waters? Could it have been wolves? My eyes shifted from side to side as I listened: dead silence - no wind, no birds, no waves.  Just the silence. 

Then I heard another splash, a kerplunk.  It was almost as if someone had thrown a fairly large rock into the water.  But I knew I was well isolated from other people.  One couple in a single canoe had paddled across the lake last evening, but they took the portage toward Sawbill Lake.  No one was around to throw a rock, it must have been a fish.  Then I heard it again "Splash, kerplunk!"   Yes, just a fish, but boy, it must be a big one. 

My eyes closed and I relaxed again.  I cozied down into my sleeping bag and dreamed what it would be like if I had fishing gear and a license.  I stealthily got up and snuck to the water's edge.  I waited for another jump then deftly cast a dry fly into the concentric rings.  He struck and the line tightened to within ounces of its breaking strength.  I eventually landed a large trout.  "Yeah, maybe I should have brought some fishing gear," I thought.  Then, "Should I feel for the flashlight and see what time it is or just go back to sleep?"   It was comfortable in the sleeping bag, but I had told myself last night that I would get up really early so I could be on the water while the sun was rising.  That was the best opportunity for seeing wildlife.  The little creek I would be paddling up looked like a very likely place for wildlife.  I had seen a small bull moose across the creek last night after supper.  He was a foolish looking specimen with his long gangly legs and small undersized antlers.  But he didn't act foolish - he left quickly as soon as he saw me.

Then the splashing commenced in earnest, amid many kerplunks.  It was not fish!  It must be the moose back at the water feeding. 

I looked toward the window of the tent.  There was a little hint of daylight in the east.  I reached for my flashlight - experience had taught me to always keep the flashlight where I'd know where to reach it no matter how disorganized the tent became - and I checked the time: twenty of five, less than an hour to sunrise.  If I got up now and hurried with breakfast and breaking camp, I could be on the water by sunrise.  Cream of Wheat and coffee would make a quick breakfast - get moving!

Sometimes it is not easy to ignore the comfort of the sleeping bag, especially on I chilly morning and I figured I would savor is warmth for a few more moments while I prewarmed my clothes and made plans.  I pulled clothes in the bag with me and planned my moves: get up, get dressed, get out and start the stove and put water on, check on the moose, pack up the things in the tent, eat, pack the cooking utensils, take down the tent, and load the canoe.  It could be accomplished in fifty minutes if I hurried.  Maybe I should light my pipe first, against the mosquitoes - no, not in the tent, too risky lighting matches in the tent, save it for later.

The pipe had been a problem the first night.  After I had made the portage from Sawbill Lake I realized that, alas, I had left it in the truck.  This was an awful thing to forget - I rarely smoke a pipe, but on a camping trip it is indispensable - is warmth gives me comfort and is taste and aroma give me pleasure, it wards off the bugs and becomes a part of my being.  After supper, I had paddled all the way back to the truck for it.  Actually, I didn't paddle all the way, a quarter mile portage-was involved also.  That was on top of the two miles each way.  I had to get organized.

It takes me awhile to get organized on a wilderness trip.  There are certain things to be relearned each time I go out.  Packing is an art or science that I still have not mastered to my satisfaction.  Where do I pack my cup?  Rain gear should be on top; first aid gear should be on top; map and compass should be on top.  What should be on top?  The first thing I go for is probably my journal, or my pipe.  Well, they should go on top.  I had a brand new pack for this trip.  It had separate compartments and a zip off day pack; I hoped it would help me get organized.  With five compartments, five different things could be on top.  My goal this year was to accomplish my portages with only one trip, to have everything in the pack save paddles and PFD, put the pack on my back, pick up the canoe and make a portage in one trip; a noble goal - the single portage.

I remember well my very first portage on a wilderness trip.  Algonquin Park - Smoke Lake to Ragged Lake: 240 meters.  I went back ad forth four times first with the canoe, then the pack, then a trip with camera equipment, life vest, and paddles, lastly my fishing gear and canteen and probably some other odds and ends that weren't packed.  If that wasn't enough, another paddler with a group crossing the portage in the other direction was nice enough to carry my sneakers for me, as I had put hiking boots on to make the portage but didn't bother to put the sneaks into my pack.  Very unorganized.

I was tempted to try to carry everything on a single portage yesterday.  I picked the canoe up and set it in the crotch of a tree.  Spare paddle and bailing bucket were tied in, PFD was put on.  I put the pack on my back and crawled under the canoe.  Then I heard others coming toward me on the portage trail.  I got out from underneath and reconsidered.  I didn't want anyone watching my antics if this didn't work out and I tipped over onto the ground.

"Are you all right?  Are you hurt?  Here let us help you.  Oh look how many pieces your canoe smashed into.  Is that what they call smithereens?  How could you be so stupid as to try to carry all that stuff at once?  Etc, etc."

I was getting close to actually doing it; I was considerably more organized with a few year's experience.  Planning little things, like the sequence of steps for making breakfast and breaking camp quickly became more natural and a part of the fun for me.  I thought of some of these things as I executed each of the steps necessary to get me on the water before sun up.  But a glitch occurred during breakfast.  It involved one of those fears that a lone wilderness camper worries about: an attack by a dangerous animal.

There was a good log for sitting on and I was doing just that as I ate my cream of wheat and drank my coffee.  The sky was a little lighter now, but it was still dark and a flashlight was necessary to see any detail.  The hissing of my stove was the only sound until I heard the rustling in the bushes.  There was something coming toward me!  I grabbed my flashlight and shined it in the general direction of the sound.  As the light flickered through the brush, it found movement.  Cast upon the ground it shined upon a skunk approaching my primitive breakfast nook.  I yelled, "Shoo!" and kicked a stick in his direction hoping to frighten him away.  I must have frightened him all right, but not away.  He started running, a silly waddling sort of run, but directly toward me!  Cream of wheat and coffee flew into the air in two different directions, and I flew off in yet a third.  I wasn't paying attention while running, but I suppose the skunk took a better assessment of the situation and turned around and ran back into the forest from where he came.

The incident was short lived and seemed ever funnier to me at the time than it does now.  The fear, the adrenaline, the foolishness of the whole scene combined in good proportions to make me laugh out loud at myself and the skunk.  I couldn't imagine who looked more stupid, me or it.

I had found a good pole and trimmed it down the previous evening.  It was helpful against the current especially the quick little rapid that came into the lake near my campsite.  I poled my way up the current and avoided the first portage of the day.

Portages are ironic.  They are grueling, hard, tiring.  One can hurt his back permanently by performing them.  Yet they are satisfying.  One really feels he has accomplished something after a portage.  Some of us actually spend vacations going places where we have to do portages.  That is the irony, that something that is next door to self torture is also fun.  But avoiding a portage is even more fun.  And I was proud of myself for avoiding this one.

Up the creek in that morning mist, I planned on seeing more moose.  But it wasn't to happen.  Oh, I got all excited and prepared the camera a couple times for some mist shrouded clumps of moose-like bushes, but I never saw another moose.  The absurd looking animal last night would be my only moose sighting for this trip.

The creek ended at a pretty little lake.  The mist had burnt off and the sun was shining.  At the other side of this lake was a portage.  It would be a good one to try the single carry.  I had toughened up now that I was into my third day out.  And I was organized.  The portage following this one would not be a good one to experiment on, it was the longest and steepest I would encounter on this trip.  And it was to hold a special significance in that it crosses the Laurentian Divide, where the waters flow Northward.

In the Boundary Waters, unlike Algonquin Park, the portages are unmarked.  Algonquin has little orange signs at each portage with a picture of a guy carrying a canoe designating the beginning of each portage.  The sign notes the distance to, and the name of, the next lake.  The Boundary Waters offers no such amenities; one is supposed to look for a low spot in the hills where the portage trail must go.  But a well-trampled spot on the shore where those before have put in and taken out, is a more definite sign.  Easier yet - a bunch of canoes and people vying for access to the portage trail.  Not always, but often there will be other parties at the portage trails.  This is where you are most apt to meet others.

I'd rather have a portage to myself.  I hate coming up to a portage and finding some canoes using up the only good landing spots.  I may have to land on a stump in four inches of mud that is six feet from solid ground.  People might be lounging around eating lunch and watching in amusement as I try to avoid an inelegant entry.  They study my gear and canoe and may comment or perhaps just snicker under their breath.  I, of course, must not let on that I am exhausted and want to have lunch too.  Upon landing I wonder what I should leave behind, the canoe or the pack? Which are they least apt to steal?

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?

So little mishaps like this can occur, and I definitely walk slower when carrying both boat and pack, and the rests are longer.  But I'm only going over the portage once, not three times.  After the rest, I loaded up again and moved onward.

At the second rest, I figured I was about at the middle of the carry.  There was a good blueberry patch and I spent some time procrastinating starting out again by having a little snack on them.  Some kids came by me with their packs and said, "Hi." they picked a couple berries too and continued on.  Then a man and a woman came by with a canoe.  They said, "Hi," and passed by.  I was getting up the ambition to start out again when the kids came back.  I was sick of blue berries by then (I wasn't even hungry to begin with) so I loaded up and continued onward.  I passed the man and woman who were coming back.  It couldn't be too far now to the other lake.  But I wasn't going to make it without another rest. 

When there is no canoe rest or no suitable tree branch or crotch to use, the canoe must be put on the ground or you don't rest.  This is an especially strenuous act to accomplish - even taking it off your shoulders, let alone getting it back up there - when your weary.  But I managed.

The kids came back with their canoe.  I didn't want their parents to beat me too, so somehow I mustered up the energy to load myself up again and trudged onward.

One of the most beautiful things about a portage is seeing water at the other end; you know you're almost done.  I wouldn't have thought I could go the last hundred yards but seeing the water, then hearing the parents coming up behind me spurred me on.  A party was landing at this end of the trail.  Three boats.  The kids were there.  And there was one other boat with two guys by it eating lunch.  I don't know whether they were coming or going.  But I did how I had to put my canoe down and there was no place to put it.  There were rocks everywhere.  I didn't want to chance dropping my cedar canoe on the stones in front of everybody.  I surely wasn't going to walk back up the hill searching for a soft mossy spot to put it.  So I marched into the water, boots and all.  Luckily there wasn't a steep drop off.  I splashed beyond the canoes that had the only decent landing spots and plunked the boat onto the lake.  It tried to hang up in my pack again, tried to make a spectacle of itself and me, but I was able to thwart its evil attempt.  It floated next to me.  I thought I had made it.

Standing in the water trying to take my pack off, I realized it was going to get wet.  So I backed up to the canoe and tried to remove it so that it would just slide off my back into the canoe without getting soaked.

Do you know how a knapsack can sort of get caught in the crotch of your arm and not slide off readily?  Did you ever watch someone with one foot in a boat and the other on the dock?  Well, I realized that I was in both situations at the same time!  The canoe was drifting away.  I was performing a series of quick hops backward to stay with the boat while simultaneously trying to shake off the pack which nearly had me in a half nelson.  With any luck I'd just fall in the lake and drown.

The boat suddenly stopped and the pack came off and rolled down into it.

"Looks like you could use a hand," one of the fellows who had been eating lunch said.  He had waded out and grabbed my boat.  "Sorry, we would have moved our canoe so you'd have had a place to put yours down if you had asked.  Wouldn't normally take up a spot at a portage like this, but we were just too tired from the carry.  Didn't realize everyone would descend upon us so quick."

"I was too tired to ask anyone to move," I said.  "I just had to put this down."

"Know exactly what you mean.  Hey that's a beautiful canoe.  Did you make it?  Neat pack too.  Where'd you get that?  ..."

And so the incident ended with a bit of elegance after all.  At least the incident did.  But not the portage.

"Did my rain pants fall in the water while I was dancing around out here?" I asked a couple minutes later.  No one had seen them.  They must have fallen out along the portage trail.

Bringing the canoe into shore over to one side and out of the way, I tied it up to a tree and started back up over the trail, boots slurping and squishing at each step.  At the last rest, where there was no canoe rest and I had to put the boat down on the ground, that's where they must have fallen out.  I continued back, boots still squishing every step even though most of the water had been pumped out by now.  The pants weren't there.  Maybe they fell out where I picked the blueberries.  I squished my way back further.  Not there.  The first rest, of course when everything came crashing down.  I slogged back yet further.  They weren't there either.  I didn't really want to, but I figured I might as well be complete.  The rain pants weren't valuable monetarily, but they surely would be valuable in a practical sense if the weather got nasty, it was worth being complete.  The lake at the beginning of the portage was in sight from here anyway.  I dragged myself back to the beginning.  There they were.  They had fallen out when I first lifted the canoe up and shuffled it up and down onto and off of my pack.  I had almost executed a single portage.

It gave me something to think of as I wearily squished my way back over the three quarter mile trail for the third time.