It is over 320 kilometres (200 mi) long and flows mostly east to join the Nelson River at Split Lake, Manitoba.
[1][2] Near its headwaters around Burntwood Lake, the Kississing Portage connects it to the Churchill River.
The route was used by lighter Indian canoes to carry the rich Athabasca furs to Hudson Bay or, by going up the Nelson, to the posts on Lake Winnipeg.
Just south of the Burntwood, the Grass River, which also ends at Split Lake, was a parallel canoe route.
In 1825–26 George Simpson (administrator) tried to use the Burntwood as a direct route from York Factory to the Pacific, but the experiment was abandoned.