The highway provides an eastern alternative access option to Dauphin along with PTH 20A.

From this point, PTH 20 travels in an east-west direction while maintaining its designation as a north-south highway.

It skirts the southern boundary of the Swan-Pelican Provincial Forest before reaching its northern terminus with PTH 10 at Cowan.

When the current version of PTH 20 first appeared on the 1948/49 Manitoba Highway Map, it was originally a short north-south highway spanning 54 kilometres (34 mi) that connected PTH 5 just east of Dauphin to Winnipegosis.

[2] The highway was extended to Camperville in 1957,[3] and completed to its current northbound terminus at Cowan in 1959.