INTERVIEW: Sue Aikens, from ‘Life Below Zero,’ in her own words
Photo: Sue Aikens assesses the snow on her roof on Life Below Zero. Photo courtesy of BBC Worldwide/Patrick Fox / Provided by Nat Geo Pressroom with permission.
A couple nights ago, in the northern reaches of Alaska, Sue Aikens sat on a part of the roof she called the “perch.” It’s a small nook on top of a building in her river camp, and she sat up there for hours as a bear walked around nearby. Aikens was in peace until about 4 a.m., mostly because of the dazzling northern lights that were putting on quite the show up above.
Aikens, the star of National Geographic’s Life Below Zero, essentially lives near no one else in the world — and she loves it.
Life Below Zero returns with a new season Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 9 p.m. On the show, Alaskans of different backgrounds are filmed hunting, fishing, building, refueling and surviving against harsh temperatures and unpredictable elements in remote locations.
One of the most popular subjects on the show is Aikens, who lives at Kavik River Camp, located a few miles from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has lived in this part of the world for a number of years, making company with foxes, bears, caribou and clients who use her camp as a base for scientific study, hunting and fishing.
When viewers watch Aikens on the show, it becomes clear that she is dedicated to this lifestyle, putting in the necessary hours to turn a profit at Kavik and take time to enjoy the wide landscapes of the tundra. The horizon is many miles away, only interrupted by the river, the snow, the animals and blessed nothingness.
Recently, Hollywood Soapbox talked to Aikens while she was using a WiFi phone in the dining hall of her camp. Here’s what she had to say:
On how she’s doing right now …
“Kavik is a fairly sterile environment. By the time you go through 100 below in the winter, there’s not a lot of germs that survive, but somebody came through. And I managed to get strep throat, so I had to get a bush plane, fly to a clinic, get antibiotics. So my brain is a little bit fried, but I’m doing good.”
On whether filming the reality series has disrupted her plans of getting away from it all …
“You know, life is one of those things that morph. If what you’re meaning is has the show impacted my absolute solitude, of course it has. I’m more socially active on let’s say Facebook and other platforms than I used to be, but it doesn’t follow that it’s a negative experience. I’m one of those people: peace-love-granola-hippie-ish in my own way, [and] life turns out exactly the way it’s supposed to, [but] seldom how you think it will. You’ve got to roll with the punches. I do occasionally miss being able to shut it all down and just breathe. It’s like I did earlier this week. I just told people on social platforms, ‘Hey, I’ve got to breathe. Check you all in a few days.’ I think people forget that they can actually turn devices off and walk out the door.”
On whether she leases the land or owns the land …
“As a Caucasian, I cannot own land on the north slope unless I marry let’s say a native or Eskimo. The only people that can own land on the north slope is an agency, such as the state or the federal government. … The land is owned by the state and leased. If you want to be here, you have to lease the land and run a profitable business, and that business has to be open to oil and gas industry, amongst whatever else you’re doing. When I purchased it, I purchased all the improvements that were made to this place, and then I keep adding to it. So in other words, I own all the buildings, all the vehicles.
“When I got here, it took 250 gallons of fuel a day just to run the lights and the heat, and I’ve now turned it around just being more green-minded. I’ve turned it around, and I’ve got maybe five gallons a day. And once I get the rest of the alternative energy in, it’ll be five gallons a week, so it’s a work in progress. But I’ll never own the land. It’s extremely high risk. At any point, they can say, ‘Hey, rules are changing. We want more money. We’re kicking you off,’ which is actually something that’s happening now [with] the state with the opening of the Arctic Circle to different interests. They took my lease away, gave me a temporary permit, and I have probably a bidding situation to keep my lease.”
On her clients at Kavik River Camp …
“The majority of my clients here are science-based, a lot of ‘ology’ going on, whether it’s hydrology, geology, a lot of the sciences. There are some hunters that come through. Like right now, the clients that I have in right now, I take one to two weeks every year, and I shut the camp down to only autistic families and families with children with certain needs. And they just learn it a little bit differently. … I’ve always had a special interest in children with need. Like the family that is here right now, they’ve been coming here for at least 15 years, and I’ve watched these boys grow from very tiny to college aged. And it’s been kind of a joy to see how they act and react.
“The new people coming in, they see the show, and they have an idea of what Kavik is. But we don’t really highlight the business aspect of Kavik on the show, more the living aspect.”
On whether she still finds the landscape majestic …
“It’s why I push myself so hard during the busy months when I need to make the revenue, so that I can have the rest of the time just to be grateful and in awe of what’s around me. …
“Like last night, I have a bear. There’s always a bear with me, but with the high flooding that we have, this bear has never been a problem in camp. But his den got wiped out, and he can’t get to the other side where the caribou are at, neither can I actually. So he’s coming to camp, and he’s being a very big problem. I don’t want to shoot him or kill him if I don’t have to, but last night, I sat up until 4 in the morning up on the place called the ‘perch.’ It’s one of the roofs of my buildings, and I had a high-powered rifle and the pistol. But I spent a lot of time going, ‘Ooh, aah,’ because the northern lights. I finally had a clear sky, and they were putting on quite the show. I don’t know how you can get tired of living in the middle of a Nat Geo episode. Not to be goofy, but I grew up with the National Geographic and Marlin Perkins and some of these things. And my lifestyle is certainly right in the thick of it, and I absolutely don’t take that for granted.”
On where she is located during this interview …
“I’m actually in the dining hall. For 10 years I lived in the dining hall. I created just a corner, a little cubby for myself, and that’s where I’m at. It’s a WiFi phone.”
On whether phone reception is a problem …
“When I first got up here, not many people were doing the Internet up here. It’s very difficult to get over the curvature of the earth and get the satellite with any measure of success. So people had it, but it was very sketchy. But I could see that you cannot run a business if your clients can’t get a hold of you. We used to have analog phone systems, and then the government took that away and privatized it. But the first thing I did, I got an 8-foot dish, and it didn’t fit into any airplane. So I had asked them, ‘Just cut it. Don’t use a butter knife, but cut the dish. And send it up.’ And I fiberglased it and bolted it from the back.”
On why she chose Alaska in the first place …
“I am a curious little monkey, kind of a raven personality, something shiny, something interesting, something new. If it captures my attention, and I can sit in the dirt and make sand castles, I’m going to be there for a while. I’m a challenge-driven personality. In the mid-’60s, when you were asked, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up,’ as a girl you could say, ‘wife or mother.’ Then by the late-’60s, we could toss in ‘stewardess’ or ‘nurse,’ but I always said the same thing, from 3 years old on, ‘lighthouse keeper.’
“At 3 years old, I was taking a taxi in Chicago by myself to go to preschool. Who knows why I was created and just happy in my own little bubble. I think I’m a hell of a lot of a fun to hang out with. I crack myself up all the time.
“The wide open vistas, I’m used to it here. … If you’re a challenge-driven personality, throw yourself in a tent off the Arctic Ocean. And go to 100 below zero for 18 years, and see how you like it. There’s nothing that doesn’t engage all of my senses.”
On whether she has met the other people on Life Below Zero …
“I’ve met most of them. As a state, we call it muck-luck messaging. It’s kind of like what you used to do in school maybe when the teacher has the first child lean over and whisper something into the ear of the next one. By the time you get the 30th student, you’ve got a whole different story. Well, muck-luck messaging, something happens to one of us out here in the wild, or somebody new moves really remote, boy it’s like wildfire. Nome will hear about it before I can make a phone call, so we all kind of know about each other.
“I’ve met quite a few of them. I do go to Fairbanks. I have some family there. I have a daughter, and the grandkids are down there. I have my grandson up here. You saw him on an episode of the show probably four years ago or so, but now he’s almost 18, 42-inch chest, size 16 feet and talks like this [deep voice]. …
“There’s a lot of really amazing things going to happen this season that I know about. I don’t know what everybody’s done, but there’s a few things that I know about. And there’s some new people. I think that’s one of the charms of the show is that there’s always something fresh, something new.”
On whether she knows how inspirational her story is to viewers …
“I’m six eggs shy of a dozen on a good day. I can still whip up a hell of a omelette with the six I’ve got left, but I’m a little different. To keep it real, to live this remote and choose to live this remotely, you have to keep it real. So for me I do not see myself as a role model. I keep saying I’m a fat chick doing my own thing up here. I do recognize that some people do feel inspired.
“I choose to take most of the proceeds, which I can’t go into too deeply, but what I make from the show, it’s a blessing. But blessings are only blessings if you pay it forward. I choose four to eight kids with cancer or terminal illness a year, and I help them. When I had some episodes off last year, that was all part of that. I met a young woman with the Make-a-Wish foundation, and I think my largest fan base is third grade to sixth grade kids. And this was one of those. She had cancer. She wanted to see me, watch a movie called Frozen and see the northern lights. Unfortunately she got too sick to do those things, so we met in Fairbanks. I had long hair. I dyed it, found out who this Frozen princess was, dyed my hair white, put the northern lights colors in it, and let her take it for a wig. Now it’s almost exactly one year since she passed away. …
“Now I’m going to get all sad and cry. These children and people that you say I inspire, I don’t think they have a clue how inspirational they are for me. It lets me know that, hey, I’m still being a good person. Hey, I can be as crazy as I am, but in the end they all know that I’m the rough, tough creampuff. I wear my diapers low. I may have a bark, but I know how to wag my tail and lick, too.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Life Below Zero returns with new episodes Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 9 p.m. on National Geographic. Click here for more information.
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