Steve and I pack up our stuff to be ready, eventually Kelly scurries off to get help and I take a drive into "town", the café + motel are closed (permanent), there is a small Northern Store, gas pump, water treatment building and one other large building which is probably the ice rink, didn't see much else in the way of infrastructure. Bruce, along with a few others is at the gas pump with an assortment of gas cans. Getting gas on Monday morning seems like a popular social event even at $1.239/litre. I arrange with Bruce to leave the Subaru at his house and call him from Churchill to let him know when we need to have it back in Thompson.

Back at the boat Kelly's buddy has arrived, big guy who spends most of time standing on the dock providing "inspiration", they fiddle around and after about an hour the motor finally kicks over! Kelly heads for the main dock and gas, I follow his buddy via road. At the pump we fill up 6 large cans and Kelly enlists a passer by to show me the way to Bruce's house. Bruce at that time is at the dock in his Manitoba Hydro boat, he's loading up a busload of "Southern" (native) kids who are going on some sort of "traditional" camping experience. I have a quick chat and give him $160 to shuttle the car back to Thompson. I dropped off the car and went back to Kelly's place to help Steve load up our stuff.

It's a big fiberglass boat, it doesn't go very fast so it's a smooth ride. We are paying $125 to rent the boat $125 for Kelly and $234 for fuel, I gave him $500 and another $20 bill I had when he dropped us off. We left right at Noon, 3 hours and 45 minutes to travel through South Indian Lake. The lake is huge, the water level was heightened in about 1990 by about 18 feet, this has caused a pretty dull looking shoreline, along the way I saw a couple of rough cabins and one boat near the North end of the lake. There was still a large area of ice in the middle of the main Northeast portion of the lake, a reminder of just how late the arrival of summer had been. The weather was calm and clear throughout the day, the surface smooth as glass. We made one stop as we checked the map for the channel between S.I.L. and Moss Lake; Kelly mentioned that things had really changed since he had last been there in the late 70's.

At 3:15 we were dropped on shore at the very top of Moss Lake, said farewell to Kelly, donned our head nets, and loaded the boats. 45 minutes later we headed upstream on Little Sand River to start our adventure. 5 days had passed since leaving Toronto, a full week for Steve, and here at last we were underway and headed into somewhat unknown territory. This portion of the route was the one which gave me the most pre-trip worries, the details I had were sketchy, they varied from "not bad" to "difficult" with no real reference points to determine what that might actually mean. The initial section was pleasant enough, the oxbows were constant but it didn't mean the current we paddled against was modest. As the river narrowed the current increased, the river has started out about 30 to 40 meters wide quickly changing to about 20 meters with narrow spots of about 10-12 meters. We came to our first obstruction, a small number of logs piled up in front of one downed tree resting at water level, easy enough to get around. Most of the trees near the riverbank were not quite tall enough to completely block the channel so in many cases we could paddle or push our way through. We came on a few more logjams, none were big, some we were able to dislodge, and others required getting out of the boat, dancing around on floating logs while pulling the boat through or over. The current was now becoming quite strong, perhaps at "swift" level, maintaining forward progress was becoming a chore, taking a break, even for a brief moment required holding onto the bank or finding a turn that might have a small eddy. On the other hand, the weather was perfect, the bugs not so bad and the paddling was interesting if not the pleasant float it would be if one was going downstream.

We had passed a number of good-looking campsites early on, the selection now is not so good but at 7:50 we pick a site on river left that has a reasonable space for the hut. It's been a long day, but nice in all respects. It's cooling down, even more so here in the shade and this of course brings out hordes of mosquitoes, a few are getting into the hut but in relative terms it's nothing at all. By 9:30 we have recouped enough energy, to make up one MIAB, we had Tomato Chipolte Pasta (Backpackers Pantry) (1 shared). Shouldn't be a problem getting a good sleep tonight, we have a nice is albeit slightly lumpy spot, tucked away in the trees but still able to see the water silently speed by. We are not the first people to use this spot it seems, we spot an old baggage claim tag hanging on a tree. At 10:30 it's still very light out, no need for headlamps.