Portage

Portage is the act of transporting watercraft and supplies overland between bodies of water, typically to bypass rapids, waterfalls, or unfordable sections. The term derives from the French portage, from portare, meaning to carry.

Portage also appears as a place name in North America. Notable examples include Portage, Wisconsin, a city that serves as the county seat of Columbia County; Portage, Indiana, a city in Porter County; Portage la Prairie, a city in Manitoba, Canada; and Portage, Michigan, a city in Kalamazoo County. Other localities named Portage exist across the United States and Canada, reflecting the historical use of portages by Indigenous peoples and European explorers.

In computing, Portage refers to the package management system used by the Gentoo Linux distribution. Written primarily in Python, it manages software installation and updates from source code via a tree of ebuild scripts. Portage handles dependency resolution, USE flags to control optional features, and can produce binary packages for faster installs. It is accessed through the emerge tool and interacts with the Portage repository, or Gentoo tree, which is continually updated.

Historically, portage routes were essential for trade and exploration in North America, enabling travel around river obstacles and expanding connectivity between waterways. The concept underpins both geographic navigation and historical transport networks, and the term remains in use in place names and in modern software packaging.