It seemed a moot point to the accused. I take the act of stealing red Lifesavers out of my candy stash very seriously. I toss these sugary rings in my mouth at every 1,000-metre mark along a portage—a personal act of rich reward and the only thing that seemed to get me to the other side of the particularly grueling, blackfly-infested trails we trudged along on that trip. He claimed I was being overly dramatic when I threatened to never travel with him again. He gave me an evil smirk and took my last one. I haven’t tripped with him since.

What gets each canoeist to the other side of a portage varies. Some, like me, treat themselves to high-grading their candy bags. Others go into a dreamscape of good first dates, movies worth seeing a second time and dirty tricks to play on their bosses. Some paddlers simply think of things happening back at home—like traffic jams and the Greek economic crisis—to give them reasons why the pain of the portage isn’t so bad.

Many of us hum or, if we know the words, sing monotonous show tunes or the last song we heard on the radio driving to the put-in. The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) is a favourite. So are Dancing Queen by ABBA, Cat Stevens’, Cat’s in the Cradle and John Denver’s Poems, Prayers and Promises.

I remember a 27-day solo trip when I couldn’t get Aqua’s Barbie Girl out of my head. Imagine I’m a Barbie girl in a Barbie world / Life in plastic, it’s fantastic / You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere / Imagination, life is your creation every step of every portage. It was a long month.

Where the portage is located on the trip changes the carrot I dangle from my deck plate.

In the beginning, I daydream of monster walleye, picturesque campsites and the peaceful solitude I know I’ll find deeper into the interior. Near the end of the trip, it’s the thought of a cold beer and roadside junk food that makes me dance (albeit a slow waltz) my 60-pound canoe barrel across to the other side.

Ultimately, what gets most of us to the other side—no matter when and where—is the fact that the portage, nasty or not, is the only thing that protects the places we’re portaging to.

I almost guarantee that he or she who suffers the most, will be rewarded the most. A two-Lifesaver portage with steep inclines and a squishy spruce bog will give you complete solace. There will be no crowds at the end.

If you do stumble across another canoeist—ideally not as you are belting out Come on, Barbie, let’s go party, ah ah ah, yeah from beneath your Rob Roy—be assured she’ll be just as in love with the pain and pleasure of portaging as you are.

Discover more great adventure stories in Canoeroots and Family Camping’s Late Summer 2010 issue. To read it, download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.

Adventurer Paul Everitt speaks with veteran expedition paddler and sea kayak designer, Nigel Foster. To read the full interview, click here, and to learn more about Everitt and other adventurers around the world, visit Going Solo.

Crossing oceans in a sea kayak. For the foolish or the daring? 
Nigel – For the foolish and the daring! In my early days I was fascinated by what motivated people like John Fairfax, and others who rowed across the Atlantic solo, so I read all the books I could find. I also read solo sailing books by people like Joshua Slocum. I was intrigued by Alain Bombard drifting across the Atlantic in 1952, and then Romer, and Lindeman kayaking across. It takes some daring to set off on even a short open crossing in a kayak, but to tackle an ocean is in a different category. Some succeed but not all. Bombard’s health suffered, and Romer, and more recently Andrew McAuley both did amazing things but died. My own take on it? The kayak is the boat that excels in conditions close to shore, and it is the boat that can find a landing more easily than pretty much any other. It is ideal for daytime travel, when you can sleep on shore. There are other better boats than kayaks when you consider using sails or oars, or cooking on board or sleeping on board, and for crossing big open water. Crawling on hands and knees does work well when caving but why use that technique to scale a mountain?