1. Anthony Dauksza was an American football player, film-maker, and outdoorsman.
16 Facts About Tony Dauksza
1. 2.
Tony Dauksza completed the 3,200-mile journey over the course of six summers on a solo canoe expedition.
3.
Tony Dauksza attended Michigan State University where he played for the football team.
4.
Tony Dauksza was an offensive and defensive lineman for the Spartans as well as a punter and placekicker.
5.
Tony Dauksza sometimes has been confused with Antone "Tony" Dauksza, his cousin, who played as a quarterback for the 1933 National Champions Michigan Wolverines.
6.
Tony Dauksza made regular summer expeditions into Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska.
7.
Tony Dauksza eventually converted his love of the outdoors into his full-time occupation, exploring in the summers and conducting film-lectures in the winter.
8.
The Arctic Ocean was iced in by the time he arrived, and Tony Dauksza was forced to walk to an Eskimo camp.
9.
Tony Dauksza was the first one-man expedition in the smallest craft to navigate the passage.
10.
Tony Dauksza began the journey in 1966 at Point Barrow, Alaska.
11.
Tony Dauksza returned in 1967 and was forced to backtrack to the west due to heavy ice drift.
12.
Tony Dauksza experienced a close call in 1970 when he broke through the ice while dragging his canoe across an ice flow.
13.
Tony Dauksza was iced in for 12 days but managed to complete the journey, traveling from Spence Bay to Bellot Strait east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago at the tip of Boothia Peninsula.
14.
Tony Dauksza lived off caribou, duck, goose and fish on his journey.
15.
Tony Dauksza was once forced to shoot a grizzly bear that he said mistook him for a caribou.
16.
Tony Dauksza died on Christmas Day 1996 at Grand Rapids, Michigan.