Seventy-one-year-old Art “Karts” Huseonica, of Sun City, Arizona, is making an epic, record-setting journey on the Yukon River from Whitehorse to the Bering Sea, a distance of approximately 2,020 miles, or 3,251 kilometres.

He started on May 27 with a flight in to Bennett Lake, and is planning on reaching the Bering Sea on Aug. 4.

The Star met with Huseonica on Thursday and asked him the obvious question: why the journey?

“Originally I chose the Yukon River because when I set a record on the Amazon River several years ago with expedition leader Jackie O’ Murphy from Great Britain, after we finished that – we had a great time, very successful – she was always wanting to go further north ... she kept mentioning Yukon River, and I had a bunch of things going on, I was yo-yoing the Arizona trail, settin’ some records in Death Valley and doin’ some mountain climbing and then once I got around to really getting serious about it, she had other plans too ... so I said ‘OK, well I’ll just go by myself’ and so that was the inclination for the Yukon River but I just this stuff because ... I’m afraid of growing old. I really am. Afraid of growing old and dying. So I’m always pushing the limits, no matter what. That’s part of it.

“And when I get up in the morning, I have to have a plan. I need to have a short-range plan and a long-range plan. Otherwise it’s like ... go back to sleep. I need to have that excitement. That energy ... it just keeps me going. I think it helps keep me young, too. And healthy.”

Huseonica does have his detractors.

“I have my haters out there, too. It’s just like, ‘what are you goin’ out there by yourself for? What are you tryin’ to prove? Set another record? You don’t need to set another record, especially at your age.’

“This is the first time anybody’s invited Indigenous people to go along on their journey with them.

“I’ve always had a pretty big ego. I’ve never been modest. Hey, settin’ a record. I love that. I love seein’ my name in the paper. I love seein’ my name and face on TV. So it works out.”

The expedition is expected to take 60-66 days.

“Right now we’re on schedule,” said Huseonica .

“I’ve been up here spending several days, busy outfitting with Up North Adventures, Overland Yukon, and Total North ... I can’t carry everything up here. It’s impossible. I already had four cargo bags and two other bags. I just can’t afford to bring much more than that.

“The weather’s looking good, maybe a little rain tomorrow, but I think Adam Scheck, from Alcan Air, he can get us in there. In fact, he’s out there today looking for a decent place with not too much mud where he can land me and my film crew, who are only staying out there for 24 hours on Bennet Lake.

“It officially starts that day, insertion day, Friday May 27. We’re gonna camp Friday and I’m not going to go anywhere until Saturday after the film crew leaves. Cause we have to film background footage, we’ll do some mock shooting – settin’ up camp, tearin’ it down, I’ll go out in a canoe, paddle it in a certain direction, come back in, change clothes, go back out, paddle in a different direction, that sort of thing.”

There are several resupply points along the way.

The plan is to arrive at the Bering Sea on Aug. 4, return to the last village, Emmonak, and fly to Anchorage on Aug. 7, and then to Phoenix Aug. 10. If he survives the journey.

“My biggest challenge along the way is going to be the water. It’s cold. What 32, 33 degrees Fahrenheit? That’s one or two degrees Celsius. That is my biggest danger right there. If I lose my concentration or do something stupid, like paddling on Lake Leberge and the waves are two, three feet high and the wind’s blowing, why am I out there? I should be in shore. Cause paddling in high winds is just asking for trouble.

“So if I do tip, I’ve got three minutes before hypothermia sets in. My muscles start to cramp up. My brain goes to mush – which is probably halfway there already since I’m doing something like this – so that’s my biggest danger. Hypothermia and just dyin’. The joke of mine, especially among First Nations up here, is ‘yeah, everybody wears a life vest, but if you tip over, you’re probably gonna die, and the life vest is just a great body recovery device,’” shared Huseonica.

“Other concerns I might have is bears – grizzly bears, black bears, any kind of bear I guess. Mosquitoes tormentin’ me. I gotta be cautious of my surroundings with people, too. Cause I got all this gear. They see this bald-headed white guy comin’; it looks like a great opportunity.

“We had all sorts of trouble when I got on the Amazon. But we had two security guys with us too, that could protect us. Sometimes we’d pull into villages, little towns and just left right away. Cause we were goin’ through the ‘red zones’ down there, of Ecuador, Peru, Brazil. In the red zone, there’s no police, no government, everybody carries a weapon, it’s just no-man’s land. So I need to be careful of that. But I always have a cautious highway approach ... you’re not safe anywhere, really, but I have to be careful, because I can get robbed in town, in Phoenix, where I’m from, and life goes on, but if I get robbed up here, they’re stealing all my safety gear, all my equipment, you know, it’s almost – to me, I equate it to manslaughter, or attempted manslaughter. You’re trying to kill me. I take that seriously,” he stated.

Huseonica explained why he decided to go solo on this journey.

“I never did solo. Always climbed mountains, desert hikes ... it was always with teams or teammates ... I found myself sliding down a little bit because of being on teams ... the problem is, you bring these people on, they bring too much drama. Even if it’s a single person, they can’t handle things back home or people back home can’t handle things without talking to that person every hour, seriously. And that’s not an exaggeration ... and that prevented us from being successful on a climb. Especially on Denali. God, I had so much trouble. And so I come back home and my wife goes ‘just pay the extra money to go solo. Stop doing this with these groups and these people. They’re just dragging you down.’ Which they were. So I just kinda quit that.

“You have to find somebody that’s willing to do this sort of thing. Leave work, leave home, have sufficient monies to buy into it – those people are rare. Really rare.”

Huseonica was contacted by an Indigenous paddler who wanted to join his expedition, and the Indigenous interest grew from there.

“It’s really exciting to have them on board, because it really brings a lot to the expedition, cause I’m gonna learn a lot from them, obviously. And garner the respect that people like me just don’t have up here.”

Huseonica said spending time with First Nations people will be special, among other aspects of the journey.

It’s every turn, every mile of the river’s going to be different for me. It’s never-ending. It’s always going to be constantly changing. And the weather, too, as it marries with the river, it changes the river conditions. Every day’s going to be memorable, every mile’s going to be memorable.”

Huseonica is expecting the First Nations to have an impact on the expedition.

“The individuals are gonna have a huge impact on me. First of all, I’m gonna learn about them, their culture, the peoples and most of them have already approached me about the problems they’re facing. Like Carcross, they want to build a healing centre. You got so many people who are dying or addicted to opioids. That’s everywhere up here I guess.

“I’m gonna visit their villages, their cultural centres and talk to some elders there. We already have meetings set up and just learn about their challenges that they’re facing. Cause they want to get the word out. They feel like they’re not getting the word out. Like Cora Johns tonight. She’s gonna talk about salmon. She’s very passionate about that ... nobody up here talks about that. It’s just the pollution and the overfishing.

“They want me to get the message out about the things they’re facing,” he added.

Huseonica is hoping to strike a deal with Netflix or Amazon for a video production, and has a producer working on that.

At the very least, he’s hoping to end up with a high-end production on YouTube.

He is planning on using a drone.

“Most of the time, I may just throw it up, just to get a visual, and especially in Alaska, in the flats, where I try and figure out my route, what channel I’m gonna go down. And the rest of the time, just gonna fly a couple feet off me, my side, my front or back, because I can operate it where it just flies right along, follows me. I don’t have to do anything. I can just set it and I can go; I can just keep paddlin’.”

Huseonica would be powering the drone with solar power.

“Overland Yukon got me two power boxes, charging boxes, and two huge solar panels. I brought some of my own, but these are really nice and I’ll keep them up, try to charge – this coming week’s going to be nice. I’ll have a lot of sun. I’ll be able to keep everything charged up good.”

“So I got a drone, I’ve got two smartphones, I’ve got two Go-Pros, I’ve got two camcorders.” Huseonica will mount the Go-Pros on his canoe.

“I can operate them remotely from my smartphone and do videos or photos. I can have them in different positions – off to the side of the boat, I can have them in the water if it’s clear, just to show me paddling and that sort of thing.”

When asked about pictures of him tipping in a canoe, Huseonica said that he is practicing getting upright again.

“I’m always out there tipping, and training, but not in water this cold. I just can’t find water that cold in Arizona.

“It’s just nice to get back in a canoe, because when you’re by yourself, it’s impossible to get back in to a canoe, so – tipping drills, I tip over and push the canoe and all the gear to the side.”

Huseonica maintains that if he does tip over, it won’t be the end of his journey and is determined to see it through to the end.