Currency exchange in Portage La Prairie is limit to banks or credit unions, kiosks and dealers. Shopping around for currency exchange service if the exchange amount is over $500 Canadain for most customers. Make sure to compare rate at the same time, ask fee structure beside exchange and inquire about time frame to settle the fund.
Usually banks do not keep foreign currency banknotes in stock, customers have to order with banks and wait for 3 - 5 business days to pick up. In addition, when you sell your foreign banknotes to local banks, banks may not pay you immediately, banks need to send your banknotes to their back office to vertify.
Currency exchange kiosk in airport target customers who are looking for convenient service, small amount exchange. Usually the fee or the rate are not favourable for customers.
The general rule is the more convenient location, the less favourable rate and higer fees.
There are a few currency exchange dealers in Portage La Prairie. Different companies have different specilities, some focus on cash exchagne, some others conduct currency exchange by wire transfer. When you comapre the rates, please try to get quote witnin 30 minutes, becasue currency exchange rates are constantly changeing, also ask the fees they charge beside exchange.
Each currency exchange dealers, which include banks, credit unions and other dealers, offer similar but different rate. The difference is getting more significantly, when the exchange amount is getter larger, such as over $10,000 Canadian dollar. Shop around is still the best way to get the best currency exchange rate. Please make sure when you compare the rate, ask when the money will be available, what is other fees. The general idea is the more convenient locaiton, the worse rate applied.
Portage la Prairie (/ˈpɔːrtɪdʒ lə ˈpreɪri/) is a small city in the Central Plains Region of Manitoba, Canada. As of 2016, the population was 13,304 and the land area of the city was 24.68 square kilometres (9.53 sq mi).[2] Portage la Prairie is approximately 75 kilometres (47 mi) west of Winnipeg, along the Trans-Canada Highway (exactly between the provincial boundaries of Saskatchewan and Ontario), and sits on the Assiniboine River, which flooded the town persistently until a diversion channel north to Lake Manitoba (the Portage Diversion) was built to divert the flood waters. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie. According to Environment Canada, Portage la Prairie has the most sunny days during the warm months in Canada.It is the administrative headquarters of the Dakota Tipi First Nations reserve.
The area was first inhabited by Indigenous people, long before European settlers began to arrive prior to 1850. In September 1738, after the fur trade had extended into Western Canada. Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (a French-Canadian explorer and fur trader) built Fort La Reine north of the Assiniboine River to serve as a fur trading post, and provide the explorers with a "home" operating base, from which they would explore other parts of central Manitoba and western North America. In 1851, Archdeacon William Cochrane (Cockran)[5] of the Anglican Church, John McLean,[6] as well as other ambitious settlers, were among the first to purchase the first land in the area from the local Indigenous people, around what is now Crescent Lake (formerly known as "The Slough"). A school was soon built as settlers poured in from the east, followed by a church (St. Mary's La Prairie, 1854), and numerous local businesses as the community began to form. The fertile soils of the Portage la Prairie area were discovered in the 1850s, giving birth to the future agriculturally based economy of the village; Cochrane encouraged people to start growing crops and gardens on their properties to fulfill the needs of the growing food demand. A local government was formed in 1857, and by the 1860s, there were sixty homes in the community.The 1870s was a decade of rapid growth, as many more settlers moved to Portage, establishing farms and opening new businesses. By this time, the village had an operating flour mill, a local newspaper, and a community fair; just to name a few of Portage's highlights. From the 1870s to the 1880s, the community increased in population by approximately 10 times (from 300 to 3,000). Freight and supplies were transported by oxcart and steamboat until the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1881, the year Portage was incorporated as a town. Thomas Collins was the first mayor of Portage la Prairie.In 1907, Portage was incorporated as a city, and from that point on, managed to keep a gradual rate of growth and development, serving as a regional hub for agriculture, retail, manufacturing and transportation in central Manitoba.During World War II, the Royal Canadian Air Force constructed Canadian Forces Base Portage la Prairie in support of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The station was controlled by the RCAF but used naval personnel as high-frequency direction finding operators. The station's priority was German U-boat traffic. This site and CFB Rivers located at Rivers, Manitoba helped to increase the fix accuracy immensely.Commercial cultivation of industrial cannabis was banned in Canada in 1938, but in 1928 1,640 acres (660 ha) of industrial hemp was grown in Canada, with 1,200 acres (490 ha) of that being in Portage la Prairie.[7]The name of the city 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.