Thanks Darl-h! So much to explore up there.
We ended up doing the route from the access point above Minchin as planned and had some tough headwinds but all worked out perfectly. We also got a stunning caribou, cow moose, bull moose, timber wolves howling near our site on Lawson, and two bears. Northern lights and incredible skies, stars, storms, full moon, and the pictos on Lawson. Walleye and pike fishing was of course terrific.
Saw no paddlers but saw the cabin owner/trapper on Hooker guiding a couple of guys for the moose hunt along with another motorboat on Hooker, and another on Churchill and one where the Miniss R flows into Lake St Joseph. If there's any drawback to this route, it's the fact that it's full of fly-ins, but thankfully they were all pretty quiet.
Took 12 days to do it including our drive times, so more like 10 days of actual travel. Fewer daylight hours and headwinds slowed progress but we had up to 14 so it was all good.
We scoured the shoreline for the first of three ports to get up to De Lesseps L instead of the 1.6km trek but found nothing. The mile-long port was pretty good though.
Great route. Many thanks to Brad Jennings for his web map posted above.
My trip video:
https://youtu.be/p3chXs0x-ho