The area contains continuous coniferous and boreal forest, consisting of closed stands of black spruce and jack pine and a ground cover of mosses and lichens.

Local relief rarely exceeds 25 metres (82 ft), but there are ridged steeply sloping rocky uplands and lowlands with exposed bedrock throughout.

Wildlife includes barren-ground caribou, moose, black bear, lynx, wolf, beaver, muskrat, red-backed vole, and snowshoe hare.

It linked the important trading posts of Cumberland House to the Frog Portage, Île-à-la-Crosse and eventually Lake Athabasca.

A traveller in the early 19th century recorded "This river is most appropriately named by the Canadians; for I believe, for its length, it is the most dangerous, cross-grained piece of navigation in the Indian country.