In 1964, he canoed 300 miles from Great Slave Lake to the Mackenzie River delta. The Arctic Ocean was iced in by the time he arrived, and Dauksza was forced to walk to an Eskimo camp. In 1965, he became the first person to canoe down the East Calendar River from the Brooks Range in northeastern Alaska. The 300-mile journey included 200 miles of white water. Dauksza recalled, I'd just get through one rapid and I'd hear the roar of the next. There was barely time enough between rapids to bale [sic]. The Detroit Free Press in 1969 called Dauksza a latter-day Daniel Boone.