For the Portage Canal located in the Keweenaw Peninsula, see Keweenaw Waterway.The Portage Canal was built to connect the Fox River and Wisconsin River at Portage, Wisconsin along the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway.Numerous attempts were made to build the thin Wisconsin-Fox connection through the marshy land, beginning in 1837 with the formation of the "Portage Canal Company". Digging and hauling by hand through two and a half miles of muddy terrain, the project was quickly abandoned.