To portage means to carry boats or goods overland from one body of water to another. Portage Park was given that name for a reason.

“Portage Park has long standing connections to water. During wet weather, early Indian inhabitants could paddle their canoes from the Chicago River to the Des Plaines on a minor portage along present-day Irving Park Road,” according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago.

Gone are the canoes and the original waterways. Yet, Portage Park still has its connections to water. The park is known for its Olympic-sized outdoor pool and diving well. The pool was built for the 1959 Pan American Games. It also hosted the 1972 U.S. Olympic Swimming trials. The park originally had a sandy-bottomed swimming lagoon, which was eventually replaced by pools.

Hidden in the field house is a smaller indoor pool. On a cold February day, my friend and teammate Ronna Feldman and I portaged our swim gear from the parking lot next to the outdoor pool to the field house basement on the other side of the park to take a swim inside.

Welcome to Swimming Social, a blog that charts our visits to all 91 Chicago Park District Pools. It combines three things I feel passionate about: swimming, activism and writing. It’s a socially-conscious swimmer’s view about Chicago’s parks, neighborhoods, history and contemporary issues that surround and have an impact on our daily lives. It also is a celebration of the hidden public green and blue gems in our city: parks and pools.