The Portage: Time, Memory and Storytelling in the Making of an American Place

In a highly illustrated lecture drawn based on the first chapter of the book he is writing on the history of Portage, Wisconsin, William Cronon meditates on the roles that memory and storytelling play in human place-making. A natural ecosystem or an abstract geographical space becomes a human place, he argues, through the endless accretion of narratives that render that place meaningful for those who visit or live in it. Curiously, although Portage is virtually unknown to most Americans and Canadians, it has played a surprisingly important role in shaping American ideas of nature.