Welcome
Cranberry Portage is a community of approximately 1,000 people. It is located 800 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg and lies just north of the 54th parallel. The town is 90 kilometers north of The Pas and 50 kilometers southeast of Flin Flon. Provincial Highway 10 passes through Cranberry Portage and provides the only road link with the outside world.
Cranberry Portage is on the ridge between Lake Athapapuskow and First Cranberry Lake, providing a land bridge between water bodies that extend for great distances on both its east and west sides. This ridge, created by glacial action thousands of years ago, forms a natural divide between the Saskatchewan River and Nelson River drainage basins and is a key factor in understanding Cranberry's historical and current development.
Rock outcrops, found in various places in and around the community, indicate that Cranberry Portage is in the physiographic region known as the Canadian Shield. Actually it is just on the edge of the Shield in the transition zone between it and the Western Interior Lowlands.
To the north of Cranberry Portage the geology is made up of the granites and metamorphic rocks of the Canadian Shield. To the south are the sedimentary limestones which extend right across the central part of Manitoba through the Interlake region.
Soil conditions do not permit agricultural activities such as those found near The Pas or in the southern parts of the province. However, it is in a forested area of much natural beauty, containing coniferous trees, such as Spruce and Jack Pine, interspersed with deciduous trees such as Poplar and Birch.
Lakes and rivers have long been an important aspect of Cranberry's geography. Lake Athapapuskow, west of the community, is linked by Goose River (known locally as Rat Creek) to Goose Lake, Namew Lake and the Saskatchewan River. The three Cranberry Lakes, on the east side of town, are linked by the Grass River to Elbow Lake, Reed Lake and the Nelson River System. Such waterways were important for Native people, the ancestors of the Cree, who inhabited this area long before Europeans arrived in Canada.
Today the lakes and rivers still attract tourists, and Cranberry Portage has become a vibrant and diverse community on Highway 10 between Flin Flon and The Pas.