Wiktionary
setting poles
n. (setting pole English)
Usage examples of "setting poles".
Just above the entrance of the Little Missouri, the Great Missouri is upwards of a mile in width, though immediately at the entrance of the former it is not more than 200 yards wide and so shallow that the canoes passed it with setting poles.
The boats, in general, had to be propelled by oars and setting poles, or drawn by the hand and by grappling hooks from one root or overhanging tree to another.
In fact a flat-boat was there moored by it, it's setting poles lying across the gunwales.