We enter the Cariboo River from McLeary Lake. The river is swift and silt-laden, looking like a cup of coffee with way too much cream, much colder than the lakes we have been in previously. We stop at a predetermined sandbar to scope out what's ahead. We see the bent canoe--still at the site of the incident in the middle of the river--of some unlucky folks who hit a submerged tree trunk. Merlin and Cheryl instruct us how to negotiate past this river's many sweepers (fallen trees in the river), rocks and submerged tree stumps.