Portage Inlet is located northwest of the Gorge Waterway, at the narrow head of Victoria harbour. It appears on an 1855 map by Joseph Pemberton, and on Admiralty charts thereafter.1 According to Scott, an ancient First Nation trail ran between the head of the Inlet
and Thetis Cove, in Esquimalt Harbour.2 It draws its European names from Pemberton's era, when small-craft navy sailors chose to portage across the nearby land to avoid
rougher outside waters.3
1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 469.