Native Americans
traveling the waterways of North America were constantly confronted
with nonnavigable sections of river where canoes and baggage had
to be transported over land, around falls and rapids. Sometimes
the portage was as treacherous as the river itself. Carrying their
heavy burdens, Indians and Europeans often fell to their deaths
trying to negotiate rocky terrain and steep cliffs.
Robert Griffing's
painting The Portage gives us a glimpse of a rarely recorded
but common event of the 18th century woodland Indian.
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