Portage
Portage, a land route between two navigable waterways. The term also refers to the carrying of canoes (or boats) and goods between two waterways. Numerous portages were of value in connecting the Great Lakes and their tributaries with the Mississippi River basin during the 17th and 18th centuries. They often became the sites of forts, and eventually of cities.
One of the leading portages in the East lay between the Hudson River and Lake George; it provided a link between the Atlantic Ocean and the St. Lawrence River. Another was the Niagara portage, between Lakes Erie and Ontario, which provided a bypass for Niagara Falls. In the Midwest, a portage lay between the Des Plaines and Chicago rivers, at what is now Chicago. Another, passing through what is now South Bend (Indiana), was between the Kankakee and St. Joseph rivers. In the Northwest, people traveling up the Missouri River had to make a portage at what is now Great Falls, Montana.