An October 2007 public intervention by Terence Houle and Trevor Freeman, involving the portage of a 16 ft canoe through the crowded downtown area of Vancouver, British Columbia, from English Bay to Coal Harbour. Dressing up in stereotypically “traditional” Aboriginal and Métis garb, Houle and Freeman traverse the populated urban terrain of Vancouver’s metropolitan centre.
Hole dressed in a loincloth and moccasins and Freeman wore early fur-trapping attire and a Metis sash tied around his waist. After posing with the canoe in front of the Hudson’s Bay Company store on Granville, they placed the canoe on their heads, one man in the front and one man in the back and began their ‘Portage’ through the downtown core of Vancouver. Along the way, they interacted with people and occasionally stopped to talk, or eat, or rest. The ‘Portage’ endurance performance took approximately 2-3 hours.