He is the author or editor of more than 200 publications, including more than 4000 pages of bilingual texts in seven Dene languages.
Kari has compiled or documented more than 14,000 place names in fourteen Alaska or Canadian Dene languages.
He worked with Dena'ina writer and ethnographer Peter Kalifornsky on a 1991 compilation of his creative writings.
In March 2013 he received the Professional Achievement Award at the 40th annual meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association.
In 2019 he was presented with a volume of papers by colleagues in honor of his career in Dene research (Holton and Thornton, 2019).