INTERVIEW: Sue Aikens has been living ‘Life Below Zero’ for 150 episodes

Photo: Sue Aikens pours fresh water for her cabin from the frozen river outside her cabin on Life Below Zero. Photo courtesy of BBC Worldwide / Provided by Nat Geo Pressroom with permission.

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Life Below Zero leads the way amongst the reality programs that center on life in Alaska — and that’s saying something because there are many options out there. On the show, Sue Aikens is one of the most beloved subjects. She lives a remote life in the northern reaches of the world at a place called the Kavik River Camp, and in 2020, life was a bit strange. She faced personal tribulations (a spinal surgery) and professional setbacks (cancellations of visitors to Kavik due to COVID-19), but she has also been sitting near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge essentially in the best quarantine ever. She may be the most prepared person in the world for the coronavirus.

Earlier this year, Hollywood Soapbox talked with Aikens about her historic year. Below are some highlights of that conversation, and audience members should check out the landmark 150th episode of Life Below Zero, which airs New Year’s Day at 9 p.m.

On whether life becomes lonely near the Arctic …

“I don’t come from a real emotional place in how I live, and what I mean by that, people will say, ‘Oh my gosh, you must be lonely, Sue.’ And I go, ‘No, no, no.’ Lonely — there’s a negative connotation, and you’re dwelling in what you don’t have. And you’re thinking about, oh, I don’t have somebody here. I’m lonely — it’s an active, disparaging thing. I register that I live alone, but it doesn’t follow that I’m lonely.

On the fear factor of living near wild animals …

“Fear is sort of the same way. It’s not that I never experience fear, but I don’t live it. So when you hear me be overly analytical, I think in pictures. I did have my incident with the attack with the grizzly. I try to keep that in third person. I don’t try to dwell on it and really go in depth about it. It is not my favorite memory, especially because I think in pictures. It takes me back immediately.

“I don’t appreciate going down to the river or going out to do things in really thick fog. When I was attacked it was at the river. There was fog. I try to be smarter than I was that day. If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re kind of bound to repeat them. I’d rather not repeat that one. It may happen. When a bear attacks you, you did something in their language to incur their wrath, and I guarantee you don’t have very many seconds to turn it around.”

On the challenges of the environment …

“I don’t enjoy falling through the ice. I’ve done it before. I don’t enjoy putting myself in the position to possibly do it again. As I get older, with my spine, I’m more careful. I try to be more careful about what I do. The legs are the powerhouse for me. I can lift a tremendous amount of weight, but with the spine being done recently, I can’t twist a whole lot. So it takes a little more thinking, and you’ll see something this season that I definitely went way outside the box and created some really cool engineering to handle my new restrictions with the spine. It worked really well, but fear wasn’t part of it, other than it would really suck to get hurt again.”

On whether she has a high tolerance for pain …

“I think people should become very in tune with their own bodies. I think that for many, many years we sort of fell out of tune with our own food chain and our own bodies. With this pandemic year and being at home so much, I think there was and still is a real awakening of, holy cow, look at all the stuff I can do and make myself healthier.

“In that same vein, I’ve been very hyper-aware when I hurt myself or something isn’t working the way that it should with the spine. … I know I have to have the hips replaced from the bear injury and from a different injury a few years back, and so when I was having difficulties I simply attributed it to the hips. But when I went into the doctor’s, he said, ‘All right, we did some MRIs.’ He says, ‘OK, well, don’t forget, be here at this time in the morning, and don’t eat or drink anything.’ I was like, ‘Dude, this was not a date. What do you mean don’t drink anything or eat anything?’ He says, ‘Surgery. Spine.’ I said, ‘I thought we were going to do hips.’

“In my head, I thought we were going to do it in a slow part of the winter, and he’s like, ‘No, we’re doing thoracic all the way down. We’re zippering you up.’ So I’m hyper-aware of when I need attention, but if it’s simply pain, I can put that aside and keep working. When the limb no longer works or it’s not serviceable or I have to take out rotating, twisting or lifting, then I know, hey, there’s something more going on here. I better get a professional opinion.”

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On what life has been like during a pandemic …

“When I had the spinal surgery done, it was at the tip of the iceberg for when the COVID really hit, so I was in a hotel room with a mask and some limitations for a while. And then I went to the cabin and isolated, [then] came back to Kavik. One-hundred percent of my clients this summer because of the pandemic and difficulties in travel canceled, but that was also part of my decision. Out here at Kavik you’re more likely to get rabies than COVID, you know. It’s a population of one, but coming in and out, I have to be able to guarantee the safety of the people and the animals and myself out here. And that means I have to adhere to the isolation.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Life Below Zero, featuring Sue Aikens, will air its 150th episode Friday, Jan. 1 at 9 p.m. on Nat Geo. Click here for more information.

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