Our name is rooted in the Canadian fur trade
With a name derived from the French “portage”, meaning to carry a canoe overland between waterways, the community was named by the fur traders who would traverse the prairies while conducting their trade.
Locally, the voyageurs would haul their canoes and freight from the Assiniboine River to Lake Manitoba. Portage la Prairie translates as ‘portage over the prairie’.
Many of our original municipal logos included imagery of a voyageur, depicting the literal translation of our name’s origin.