On the ground! Plane loaded with donated food arrives in Sandy Lake First Nation

Ever wanted to know what 3,000 pounds of carrots looks like?

That's some of what a number of Sandy Lake First Nation residents, working in a school gymnasium on Friday, saw as they unloaded and sorted food that was on a Wasaya Airways plane that landed in the far north community earlier in the day.

• CBC Thunder Bay's Sounds Of the Season celebrates a plane full of food bound for northern First Nation

• Countdown to Sounds of the Season: You don't want to miss this!

The plane took off from Thunder Bay, Ont. Friday morning after a special broadcast of Superior Morning and landed in the far north just before noon, ET.

Sandy Lake, a fly-in First Nation about 650 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay, is a community where fresh food is much more difficult to come by at a reasonable price, than in less remote parts of the northwest.

On Friday morning, 10,000 pounds or 4,536 kilograms of food was loaded onto a Wasaya Hawker Siddeley 748 our sleigh for this mission to fly to Sandy Lake. The use of plane was donated by the First Nations-owned airline.

WasayaAirways, Erb Trucking and the Trucks for Change network have all been instrumental in getting the donated food to its final destination.

In addition, from southern Ontario, Leamington-based Southwestern Ontario Gleaners has donated a huge shipment of soup mix, snacks and fresh produce.

On Friday's Superior Morning broadcast, Sandy Lake Chief Bart Meekis thanked the community's "southern brothers and sisters."

"Food is very, very expensive up north," he said. "Maybe three or four times as high as down south."

Every member of Sandy Lake will receive a fresh food hamper. The community of 2,000has been instrumental in co-ordinating the in-community transportation and distribution of the food after it arrived no easy task, considering the 25 C temperatures Friday and the need to protect the fresh fruits and vegetables.

In addition to the donated food, Thunder Bay's Sounds Of the Season also raised about $10,000 in cash, so far.