Portage la Prairie travel guide

For the rural municipality, see Portage la Prairie, Manitoba (rural municipality).
Portage la Prairie (pronounced /ˈportəʤ la ˈpreri/ in English) is a city in the Canadian province of Manitoba. As of 2006, the population was 12,728. The population in 1996 was 13,077. The area of the city was Portage la Prairie is located approximately 70 kilometres (45 miles) west of Winnipeg. It sits on the Assiniboine River, which flooded the town persistently until a ditch north to Lake Manitoba (the Assiniboine River Floodway) was built to divert the flood waters.
The name is derived from the French word portage, which means to carry a canoe overland between waterways. In this case the "portage" was between the Assiniboine River and Lake Manitoba, over la prairie.
The city became a major transportation centre due to its proximity to the river and later, the location of the main lines of the country's national railways passing through the community, all within a few hundred meters of each other. This has made Portage la Prairie one of the most ideal places for railway aficionados to view trains.
Portage la Prairie has a civilian/military airbase south of the community known as Southport. It was established as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during World War II and trained thousands of pilots for military service from around the world.
Southport remains a training base for Canadian Forces pilots, but today the base is the home to the Canada Wings Aviation Training Centre. A consortium of civilian contractors collectively known as Allied Wings work hand in hand with Canadian Forces military personnel providing state-of-the-art computer-based, instructor-led, simulator and flight training to ab-initio (primary) pilot candidates, as well as to advanced multi-engine and helicopter pilot candidates. (...) more....