This man rode horseback from Alaska to Whitehorse, and he's not stopping there
Filipe Masetti’s journey spans 12 countries and tens of thousands of kilometres
Filipe Masetti has just ridden a horse about 950 kilometres from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Whitehorse, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Masetti is on a journey of a lifetime, crossing the entirety of the Americas on horseback. In 2012, he left the Calgary Stampede, rode to Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina. That took eight years. Now he's finishing off the Americas by making his way back to where he started.
"I'm riding two mustangs from the Okanagan region, so they're very scared a lot," said the Brazilian-born journalist. "A lot of motorcycles are on the road. One day they got very scared and we galloped for a kilometre before I could stop the horses."
When asked why he's decided to ride these wild beasts tens of thousands of kilometres at a rate of 4 km/h, the answer is expansive.
The horse opens a lot of doors for me.- Filipe Masetti
Masetti says he wants to inspire people to get closer to nature, raise money for a cancer hospital in Brazil (he's raised $30,000 already), and write a series of books about his journey that span topics as vast as drug lords with petting zoos to global warming. He's written one already, called Long Ride Home: Guns, Guts and Grizzlies.
"It's a lot of observations, because you're travelling on horseback 30 kilometres a day you don't miss anything," he said.
"The horse opens a lot of doors for me. So the books are about that — about how people are living in the Americas.
"I talk about … all of the pollution I saw in the rivers in Latin America. I talk about all of the drought. In every country I cross, I talk about the mass migration of people walking from Central America through Mexico into the U.S. and how much suffering and how desperate these people are."
To top it all off, Masetti is sponsored by a production company out of Nashville, so the entire journey is being filmed for what will eventually be a reality television show.
This may not have been a specific ambition when setting off, but Masetti also met a special someone along the way. That's Clara Davel, a woman from Argentina who has now become a key to his success.
"I was just a lonely cowboy," said Masetti. "I got to a small town called El Boson and ended up adopting a dog and falling in love, so it was a great, great stopover."
Masetti asked Davel to accompany him to this final leg of his journey. Now, she's driving a motorhome and carrying water and feed for the horses, which is a huge load off his daily responsibilities. Before having Davel's help, he was responsible for finding sustenance for the horses, which would add more work to what is already a very long day.
Masetti says he hopes to make it to Grande Prairie, Alta., before winter hits. Then, the goal is to trot back into Calgary for next year's Stampede.
After that?
"I hope to find a place to settle down and start a family."
Written by Randi Beers, based on reporting by Dave Croft