DCHP-1 Online
vase [< Cdn F < F, ult. < Gmc] Fur Trade, Obs. 
n. a muddy, boggy tract, especially a portage (def. la) through such terrain.
- 1760 (1760) [We reached the Portage a la Vase . . . Their name describes the boggy ground of which they consist.]
- 1793 (1933) Leaving this lake we have three portages running called the vases. The men will have the first vase to be some perches longer than the Grand Callumet... .
- 1821 (1900) We then passed through a Succession of small Lakes and at 9 encamped on the last Vase.
- 1933 The propriety of the name Portages des Vases, or Muddy Portages, was attested to by Henry the elder, who noted the term with understanding in 1760, and by Bigsby, who passed that way more than half a century later.
- 1760 (1760) [We reached the Portage a la Vase . . . Their name describes the boggy ground of which they consist.]