Portage Bay is an arm of Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

's Lake Union

Lake Union

Lake Union is a freshwater lake entirely within the Seattle, Washington city limits.-Origins:A glacial lake, its basin was dug 12,000 years ago by the Vashon glacier, which also created Lake Washington and Seattle's Green, Bitter, and Haller Lakes.-Name:...

 and is part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal

Lake Washington Ship Canal

The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the City of Seattle, Washington, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Ship Canal includes a series of locks, modeled after the Panama Canal, to accommodate the different water levels...

. Its western limit can be said to be the Ship Canal Bridge, which carries Interstate 5 over the water; North Passage Point Park

North Passage Point Park

North Passage Point Park is a 0.8 acre park located in the Northlake neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, directly underneath the Ship Canal Bridge on the north side of the Lake Union/Portage Bay shoreline. It was dedicated in 1977. South Passage Point Park is directly across the water on the...

 and South Passage Point Park

South Passage Point Park

South Passage Point Park is a 0.9 acre park located in the Eastlake neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, directly underneath the Ship Canal Bridge on the south side of the Lake Union/Portage Bay shoreline. It was dedicated in 1977. North Passage Point Park is directly across the water on the north...

 sit on opposite shores between the freeway's pillars. Its eastern limit is the entrance to the Montlake Cut

Montlake Cut

The Montlake Cut is the easternmost section of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which passes through the city of Seattle, linking Lake Washington to Puget Sound. It is approximately long and wide. The center channel is wide and deep....

.

Portage Bay was named in 1913 because of the portage

Portage

Portage or portaging refers to the practice of carrying watercraft or cargo over land to avoid river obstacles, or between two bodies of water. A place where this carrying occurs is also called a portage; a person doing the carrying is called a porter.The English word portage is derived from the...

 across the Montlake Isthmus that used to be necessary to move logs

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

 from Union Bay to Lake Union before the construction of the Ship Canal. The bay is home to two yacht

Yacht

A yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...

 clubs, the Seattle and the Queen City, and many houseboat

Houseboat

A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. Some houseboats are not motorized, because they are usually moored, kept stationary at a fixed point and often tethered to land to provide utilities...

s, as well as the Northwest Fisheries Science Center of the National Marine Fisheries Service

National Marine Fisheries Service

The National Marine Fisheries Service is a United States federal agency. A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Commerce, NMFS is responsible for the stewardship and management of the nation's living marine resources and their habitat within the...

 and the University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

's College of Ocean

Oceanography

Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...

 and Fishery

Fishery

Generally, a fishery is an entity engaged in raising or harvesting fish which is determined by some authority to be a fishery. According to the FAO, a fishery is typically defined in terms of the "people involved, species or type of fish, area of water or seabed, method of fishing, class of boats,...

 Science. It is spanned by the University Bridge, which carries Eastlake Avenue from Eastlake

Eastlake, Seattle, Washington

Eastlake is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, so named because of its location on the eastern shore of Lake Union. Its main thoroughfare is Eastlake Avenue E., which runs from Howell Street at the northeast corner of Downtown north over the University Bridge to the University District, where...

 to the University District

University District, Seattle, Washington

The University District is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, so named because the main campus of the University of Washington is located there. The UW moved in two years after the area was annexed to Seattle, while much of the area was still clear cut forest or stump farmland...

, and by the Portage Bay Viaduct, which carries State Route 520 from Montlake

Montlake, Seattle, Washington

Montlake is an affluent residential neighborhood in central Seattle. It is bounded to the north by Portage Bay and the Montlake Cut section of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, to the east by the Washington Park Arboretum, and to the south and west by Interlaken Park. Capitol Hill is on its south and...

 to Capitol Hill

Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington

Capitol Hill is the most densely populated residential district in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the center of the city's gay and counterculture communities, and is one of the city's most prominent nightlife and entertainment districts....

.

History

In 1861, landowner Harvey Pike cut the first ditch connecting Lake Washington's Union Bay and Lake Union's Portage Bay, but gave up and deeded his land to the Lake Washington Ship Canal Company, which built a transiting rail line for portaging goods between the lakes. This rail line continued use until 1878. In 1883, David Denny

David Denny

David Thomas Denny was a member of the Denny Party, who are generally collectively credited as the founders of Seattle, Washington, USA. Though he ultimately underwent bankruptcy, he was a significant contributor to the shape of the city...

 and Thomas Burke had a canal built for floating logs.

Cheshiahud

Cheshiahud

Cheshiahud and his family on Lake Union, Seattle, Washington in the 1880s are, along with Princess Angeline, among the few late-19th century Dkhw'Duw'Absh about whom a little is known...

 lived and carved canoes on the shores of Portage Bay for many years from 1885.
In 1909, the Pay Streak, a vaudeville and sideshows section of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition, ended in a gondola ramp and esplanade on the north shores of Portage Bay.

For 14 years following World War II, the SV Fantome

SV Fantome

The S/V Fantome was a 679-ton windjammer owned by Windjammer Barefoot Cruises in Miami, Florida. Completed in 1927 by the Duke of Westminster, the ship was purchased by Windjammer in 1969, and became flagship of the fleet. During her twenty-nine years of service in this regard, Fantome offered...

 was stranded in Portage Bay pending payment to King County of back taxes.

Neighborhood

The small residential neighborhood of Portage Bay, Seattle, is located on the southwestern shore of the bay.
It is bounded on the south by State Route 520 and on the west by Interstate 5

Interstate 5

Interstate 5 is the main Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific Ocean coastline from Canada to Mexico . It serves some of the largest cities on the U.S...

, and features one of the larger remaining enclaves of houseboats in Seattle.