>Portage is one of those locations (well actually all of Wisconsin) where all words, town names, rivers, lakes, signs, etc are either based on French or one of the many Indian languages. This is interesting:
>
>http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/0033.htm
>
>Also, Portage's history:
>
>The historical distinction of Portage lies in its unique geographical location between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. Here, the two rivers, one flowing north to the St. Lawrence, the other south to the Mississippi, are separated by a narrow neck of land over which, for two centuries, Indians, missionaries, trappers, traders, adventurers and settlers traveling the waterway had to portage their canoes and heavy packs from one stream to another. The settlement which grew here because of the resulting traffic was first known as "Wau-wau-onah", Winnebago for "carry on the shoulder". During the French occcupation, it was simply "le portage" (from porter: to carry). This was eventually anglicized to Portage.

So it's like I summised then ... Portage of canoes/boats

Intersting etymology of Wisconsin

BTW England, as you probably know, was orig Angle Land (land of the Angles and Saxons) _ in French it's still Angleterre.
Later it was corrupted to Ingleland (in Italian it's Inglaterra). Later futher corrupted to England (which is its German name).

I live in the county of Sussex, from Sudsexe, from "south Saxons"
Similarly we have the county of Essex and there used to be a kingdom of Wessex