EP 173 The warden of Kavik River Camp with Sue Aikens

In this one, I talk to Sue Aikens — the warden of Kavik River Camp, a remote, self-sufficient outpost on Alaska’s North Slope. A collection of bunkhouses, fuel tanks, generators and equipment set against a wide, treeless, and unforgiving landscape defined by wind, cold, and distance. Just open ground, shifting weather, and a constant awareness that survival depends on preparation and respect for the elements. Hunters, scientists, photographers, and adventurers all travel there for work and pleasure, and it’s Sue’s job to help them navigate the landscape and prepare for whatever they came there to do. She’s spent nearly 30 years of her life here, long enough to know it down to the smallest detail. Every rock, every barrel, every bend in the river. And for more than a decade of that time, she’s shared her life with the world in Life Below Zero, a reality show that gives people a glimpse into what it takes to live in the Arctic.

In her new book, North of Ordinary, she / Sue writes about a difficult upbringing, abuse, abandonment, resilience, and the unlikely path that led her to Kavik. And what emerges from that story isn’t just about survival, it’s a way of thinking. About solitude, about fear, and about what it means to rely on yourself when there’s no one else around. Like the time she was attacked by a grizzly who was trying to assert dominance around Kavik, at one point biting down on her head so hard she could hear her skull crack. After the bear left her for dead, she crawled back to camp and lay there for days until help eventually arrived. The injuries that resulted from that attack left her rebuilding her body piece by piece. It’s the kind of experience that would send most people running. But rather than pushing her away, it seemed to root her even deeper in that place. She had survived. And for Sue, survival isn’t just relief — it’s proof that she belongs in Kavik.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the show. In this one, I talk to Sue Akins, the

(00:17):
warden of Kavik River Camp, a remote, self-sufficient outpost
on Alaska's North Slope, a collection of bunkhouses, fuel
tanks, generators, and equipment set against a wide, treeless,
and unforgiving landscape defined by wind, cold, and

(00:39):
distance. Just open ground, shifting weather, and a constant
awareness that survival depends on preparation and respect for
the elements. Hunters, scientists, photographers, and
adventurers all travel there for work and pleasure. And it's

(01:02):
Sue's job to help them navigate the landscape and prepare for
whatever they came there to do. She spent nearly 30 years of her
life here, long enough to know it down to the smallest detail,
every rock, every barrel, every bend in the river. And for more

(01:25):
than a decade of that time, she's shared her life with the
world in Life Below Zero, a reality show that gives people a
glimpse into what it takes to live in the Arctic. This podcast
is made possible through the generous support of the Crude
Magazine Patreon subscribers. If you already subscribe to the

(01:48):
Crude Magazine Patreon, thank you. For those listeners who
aren't, please consider subscribing at patreon.com
slash crude magazine. I want to thank everyone subscribed at the
company man tier. These are the people who have subscribed to

(02:08):
the crude Patreon for $50 or more. Trina Duber, Seward Brewing
Company, The Grind Coffee Shop in Juneau, Derek Adolph, Jake
Liska, Sharon Liska, and Alaska Surf Adventure. Thank you to
all the Patreon subscribers. Your money and your support make

(02:32):
these conversations possible. You can also support this
podcast with a one time payment at buymeacoffee.com slash
crude magazine. And when you have a chance to rate or review
Crude Conversations on Apple Podcasts, please do. Also, Crude

(02:56):
Apparel and Merchandise is available at Tee Public. Just go
to the Crude Instagram and click the link in the bio. Back to Sue
Eakins. In her new book, North of Ordinary, she writes about a
difficult upbringing, abuse, abandonment, resilience, and the

(03:19):
unlikely path that led her to Kavik. And what emerges from
that story isn't just about survival. It's a way of
thinking about solitude, about fear, and what it means to rely
on yourself when there's no one else around. Like the time she

(03:40):
was attacked by a grizzly who was trying to assert dominance
around Kavik. At one point biting down on her head so hard
she could hear her skull crack. After the bear left her for dead,
she crawled back to camp and lay there for days until help
eventually arrived. The injuries that resulted from that attack

(04:04):
left her rebuilding her body piece by piece. It's the kind of
experience that would send most people running. But rather than
pushing her away, it seemed to root her even deeper in that
place. She had survived. And for Sue, survival isn't just

(04:25):
relief. It's proof that she belongs in Kavik. So here she
is, Sue Aikens.
This red light right here. It means we're recording. Okay,

(04:46):
fire it up.
Crude Conversations. Listen more than you talk.
Go to work.
I think in pictures and movies, if I, if I get your name and I
go, okay, Buffalo Bill Cody, got it. And so every time you call I

(05:07):
see Buffalo Bill and go, all right, Cody.
I love that.
I associate using pictures and movies and anything that my
brain can tick into as a memory. And, and then that's how I see
it. So every time somebody asked me to replay the bear incident,
which happens way more than people would like if it were

(05:29):
them. I technically relive the whole fucking thing. And I get
it. It's important. People want to hear about it. But there comes
a point where it's like, I have talked about it. I don't run
around talking about it as much. It happened. It's been a long

(05:50):
time. I can't change it. Therefore, I don't dwell on it.
Yeah. And but to every day, everybody, I want to hear about
this. No, buy the book and read it. You know, I mean, I get it.
People want to hear but it's for me, I relive it. And I don't
Yeah, I took that into consideration. When I wrote my

(06:11):
questions about the bear because yeah, I get it. You know, you
are being asked to tell this story, retell this story, retell
it again. And it has this really visceral feeling to you every

(06:31):
time you retell it. But when you come that close to death,
that physically close, does it change how you think about fear
or about your place in that landscape?
Um, no. What I can say, it's kind of a double edged sword

(06:54):
answer. Um, before you decide, people are going to tell you
decide. People ask me, how did you end up in Cal? How did you
just end up there? You can't just end up there. You can't. It
is so off the beaten path. The only place like it, not in
Alaska, in the world. Your level of aloneness, of solitude, the

(07:25):
moon, at least on the moon, they have four or five astronauts,
you know, at a time going on. You, for me, when I decided,
yeah, I want to do that. Um, you are making a conscientious
choice, you should make a choice. Can how comfortable am I

(07:49):
with my own death? Not that you're seeking it. Your biggest
predator is not the bears, your biggest predator is the weather.
The weather it the hottest I've seen it out there is 114 above,
which feels horrific. The sun just goes in a circle above your

(08:09):
head. And unless that weather pattern changes, your temperature
won't change at all. The sun doesn't go down, it doesn't get
less, it just goes in a circle over your head. So that kind of
weather, the tundra isn't designed for, and it just feels
horrific. Bonus, mosquitoes lose the mechanics of flight up there

(08:30):
around 80 degrees above. So you're not, unless you set foot
in the tundra, you're not going to be swarmed. But you have to
be comfortable with, I am not top of the food chain here. And
you're not waxing poetic, you're not going boohoo, look at me,
I'm not top of the food chain. You must be brutally honest with

(08:51):
yourself. The crew when they first came up filming the show,
so we're going to ask everybody, what is the most important thing
if you want to be successful that you have to bring with you
if you go do this kind of lifestyle? I said, your brain,
your ability to think, your ability to be brutally honest with
that which you placed yourself in. What do I mean?

(09:16):
If the camp generator blows up, takes out the power, ignites some
of the fuel, I've obviously got to leave. At 50, 60, 70 below and
100 miles to walk. That's challenging. Am I up to it? I'm

(09:37):
challenge driven. So I look at the resolution to the issue, not
getting overwhelmed with the issue. I am comfortable that I'm
probably going to meet one hell of a weird fucking death. Now,
what do I mean by that? Could be a bear, could be me the other

(09:58):
about a month ago, I'm up on my roof here at the Chena cabin,
taking off some snow, we got well over 10-12 feet of snow this
winter. And it's all iced up on my roof. Great. Well, I have the
ropes that I had tied up. But over the years, the rope had
frayed and it snapped and I went sliding off the roof and fell

(10:19):
about 16 feet. Oh, wasn't wasn't able to walk. Got myself up to
the steps into the cubby. I use Wi Fi over the internet. If I'm
going somewhere to outside to work, I always leave my little
generator running. That's how I'm talking to you right now. I

(10:40):
don't have running water. I don't have electricity. But I
can make it it's not that hard. Just expensive. But I got in
here and I grabbed my cell phone and I called my son in law. He
lives around 100 miles away. And I said, Hey, you're gonna have
to get out here. I fell off the roof. I can't walk. Probably

(11:03):
gonna anytime you have an injury, you've got 72 hours that
your body is going to swell. You're going to feel more and
more like shit when you hurt yourself until it starts
receding. Nothing felt broken. It just I've had enough
surgeries, legs pulled out of the sockets, put them back in

(11:26):
three, four surgeries just to get that part fixed up as good
as it is. I'm waiting on one more spinal surgery. I've had
three so far, the arm to fix first time from the bear second
time from the snow machine accident. I've had nine
surgeries on that. We had to take bones from other bone
pieces from other parts of my body to carve a new collarbone

(11:48):
shoulder joint and part of the upper arm and put it in. Oh,
man, that was that you saw the results of that on the show.
Had to bracket the ribs on that side because they were
splintering and shard got into the lung. I happen to be on
vacation, and I suddenly, you know, I was super feverish and
couldn't breathe. Got taken in. But you have to be comfortable

(12:15):
that you're not top of the food chain. Use your brains, not your
brawn. Brawn when you need to, but back it up with those
fucking brains. I have a tendency to wander from the what
you ever originally asked me. So I have no idea where we're at
in that. No, no, no, you're good. You know what I was

(12:36):
thinking is that in your book, North of Ordinary, you say that
you don't dwell on things that you try to live in the present
and let things go. But writing a book means revisiting a lot of
memories, good and bad. What was that like for you?

(12:59):
That was pretty torturous. It's not that I am avoidant. It just
doesn't fit where I'm going. I've already been back there. I
don't pay rent or anything on that apartment. So I can tell
you it took me probably four or five years to write the book. I

(13:25):
had a ghostwriter helper. As you can tell, I go from subject to
subject to subject to subject. I'm working on problems in my
head while I'm talking to you. I have an inertia issue I'm
working on. So I'm working on that in the background too. So

(13:46):
to write the book and revisit the stuff, easier for me, I'll
talk into a microphone. I will take a tape recording. I'll
video myself. I write then some of it down. There's napkins with
scribbles on it. To take myself back somewhere, I'm going to

(14:12):
relive every moment and that can be difficult. Why did I even
decide? People have been asking me to write a book a long time,
even as a teenager. I thought, no, you know what, my ego still

(14:32):
fits through the door. So I'll pass. It's been my bent in my
head that to write a book all about yourself, man, you got to
have an ego going on there. Then my youngest granddaughter, I was
down there. I was getting ready to take her to Disneyland for
her fifth birthday. I was down there visiting and we were

(14:54):
talking about doing it. She's looking at the show on TV. Then
she looks at me and she's giving me total side eye. Then she
looks back up and she goes, you do that? I said, well, you're
watching it, right? She goes, yeah, but she looks at me and

(15:15):
she goes, you do that? Then I get that look on my face and I
find my son with my eyes and I'm like, do you tell her nothing
about me? I went, you know what? She only knows because I live
far away and she's young. She knows what she sees about me

(15:40):
from a distance. She will know what she can read about me,
which if you've ever been on the internet, you know, face
crack or insta crack, there's not always a lot of solid
truth going on there. Yeah, yeah. Um I have never made a
million dollars an episode. I never sued the company and won
27 million. I never had a boyfriend that I married and

(16:04):
have a 21 year old love child. Be careful what you read. It's
not always true. Mm hmm. And I thought, I need to write the
book. I am like everybody on the planet. None of us make it
out of this gig alive. Mm hmm. I've looked all over my body.
There is an expiration date. We don't get the benefit of
knowing what it is. Mm hmm. If I want my children, children's

(16:31):
children, they're great, great, great, great, great
grandchildren to know who in the hell I was, am, then I need
to write it down from my perspective. Life is a
perspective gig. Yeah. Um and so that's what spurred me on to
it. I want them to read who did grandma say she was. They can

(16:57):
look at the TV as far as a reality TV showing the actual,
no, you can't put 120 each episode of mine. We'd have
maybe 100, 120 hours of film and it gets cut down to a 12
minute portion. Fifteen if you you're the big Jojo on that on
that episode. Mm hmm. Um but they do a great job of this is

(17:20):
what I wanna do. Here I am doing it. Oh **** You know, I
boned myself. This isn't gonna work. How do I make it work? So,
they'll have a visual of who I was. They'll be able to read
who I perceived I was. And then, they'll have the audio
version and for generations, they'll be able to hear, what

(17:45):
did I even sound like? Yeah. That to me is a unicorn. That
is so rare. It is. And I thought, how lovely would that
be? Yeah. Yeah. In an age of misinformation and anybody that
acts like the inquirer can can write stories and everybody
said, you know, oh yeah, that must be truth. It's somewhere,

(18:06):
you know. So, there you go. You know, Sue, I wrote this down as
I was reading and I feel like it was just an aside and you
say that psychologists have told you that you have the

(18:28):
emotional development of a seven or eight-year-old. How
accurate does that feel to you? It's very accurate in some ways.
Maybe even a little optimistic.
Sue, wake up and I have the excitement in me and very much

(18:53):
the emotional giggles and constraints or lack of them of
a two or three-year-old that you just gave 100 bucks to and
said, hey, we're going on a trip. Buy the candy. Yeah. I
wake up and I'm like, I'm ready to go. My feelings can get
hurt like anybody but it is, they're not necessarily wrong.

(19:17):
I didn't maybe mature a hell of a lot on the emotional scale. I
probably made a **** wife here and there because when the hell
was I going to learn the art of parenting, marital love, and
respect, you know, we're a monkey see monkey do society

(19:40):
for a lot. I was very sick a few times in my life from the
age of ten to maybe eleven and a half somewhere around that
scope. I was pretty much I don't remember much of that
time at all. I remember getting very sick being in the back of

(20:02):
a vehicle. Okay, we had a hearse as a family vehicle.
Okay. I'm in the back of the hearse and I'm being taken to
the hospital and I can hear the siren. I've never heard a siren
like this in my life. Very high pitched, whistly, weird, and
then I realized the sound was coming from myself. Oh, okay.

(20:23):
And I never correlated what the hell that was until you have
your own children like, hey, don't give them aspirin when
they got a high fever, Rye syndrome. Yeah. You know,
he'll notice it because of a high pitch squeal and I'm like,
oh dude, that was me. Oh. Um I truly do not understand. I have
no emotional capacity to understand. And I'm seeing

(20:47):
something in my mind. So, I'll be emotional about it. Mm hmm.
I don't understand a human's propensity towards cruelty.
Mm hmm. Towards just hurting somebody's feelings to being
mean. Um somebody wants to hurt their dog or an animal. I don't

(21:11):
get it. Mm hmm. And I can part of me is, oh **** I'm old as
dirt. You know, I'm in my mid 60s now. And I still don't
understand why inducing pain willingly on another being is

(21:36):
Okay. So, back to your question. Yeah, they they said
I'll probably never mature you know, more than a somewhere
between six and eight. Emotionally. Intelligence, I'm
really intelligent and I'm not just patting myself on the
back. I got it. I know it. It's not, you know, I'm
intelligent. Mm hmm. Applying that intelligence a little

(21:58):
trickier. I don't necessarily do well. Crowded up in a city.
I can visit cities. I love to travel. I speak all kinds of
different languages. Mm hmm. People are pretty cool. However,
when you get to the point where it's

(22:19):
The meanness, the pettiness.
I I don't understand it. I have no way to categorize that.
Yeah. Other than to chuck it in the **** bucket. Yeah. Um and
but that's where I gravitate once. Fast forward, my mom

(22:42):
abandons me. I have my and the bird comes into my life. Mm
hmm. George the Raven. Yup. Leads me to the cabin. I can
see I'm sitting here in the Chena cabin and I'm looking out
the window and that cabin, the no tech cabin is the cabin that
saved my life when I was a kid. I just happened to be

(23:06):
fortunate enough to buy it. I tried once when I was in my
30s. Couldn't do it. And I tried again when I was in my
50s and I and I managed it. Yeah. And I saved it. It was
falling apart and just ugh. Bugs, ickies, destroyed. That's
such a beautiful part of your story. The fact that you bought

(23:31):
that cabin that originally saved your life. Yeah. I equate
I have more friendship maybe with the soul of that cabin and
what it did, what it allowed me to achieve understanding
myself, my new situation, and that I could do this. Mm hmm.

(23:53):
And guess what? My best friend and family is a raven. Mm hmm.
That particular raven stayed with me off and on for 17 years
and then passed away and within a day, maybe two, here's
another one and it's been that way my whole life. The last
time I was in Kavik proper, I had George. George found a

(24:18):
Georgette and they had a little Georgie. Okay. Okay. When I
flew out, there's and I put it on Facebook that there's a
whole conversation. It's a long conversation I have with George
up in Kavik and he's yelling at me. He's very upset at me and
you can hear it in this this long 9-minute conversation and

(24:39):
then he flies off and I I'm like, dude, I know but I gotta
go. I gotta do this. I gotta do that. I have I have a book
coming out, you know, and I'm talking to him and he's like
giving me the middle wing, you know, and flying off and but
when I got down here to the cabin, which is my base while
I'm doing things that require me maybe to fly off to the

(25:00):
lower world and I can actually drive there. It's 100 miles
away, a little over 100 but you know, I can theoretically get
there but as soon within a day or so of being here, bam, three
ravens show up, a mated pair and a juvenile. Is it the same
three in as in Kavik? Probably not but it's just a pattern in

(25:24):
my life. Yeah. That my besties and my family either have fur,
fins, or feathers. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. How do you think your
upbringing shaped the way you think about trust and relying
on other people? Well, it's everything. It doesn't matter
who you are but are you looking at, you know, are you

(25:47):
looking at biblical data? I mean, are you looking at stuff
that happened so long ago and and you're bringing it, you're
keeping it current just because you're used to the
chaos. My mom. Mhm. Uh I've had some reaction in the book. Oh
my gosh, I'm so angry at your mom. Um why? I'm not. Is what

(26:12):
happened and is how I grew up. Is it how I would have scripted
it? Probably not. You cannot go back and change a damn thing.
Mhm. When my mom abandoned me, it was incredibly apparent that

(26:34):
she had or was having um a massive uh breakdown of some
kind. Mhm. Even for what was uh a pretty violent, abusive,
childhood, this was kinda next level stuff going on and very

(26:54):
weird. Um but I never walked a mile in her shoes. Everything
that happened to me and I feel like I turned out pretty good.
I'm still turning. I'm not a finished product, you know? I
still have to side slide into home plate but I can't imagine

(27:15):
what she must have gone through to create the break that I was
I was having to be around. So, it's the old adage. I've never
walked a mile in her shoes. I don't know what it brought. Uh I
I don't know what made her do what she did. I can only handle
the two feet that I'm standing on. That's it. Yeah. What did I

(27:39):
find out? Like you first read, alone, alone, alone. Oh my god,
I'm alone. Mhm. And it turned into I'm alone. Holy **** I
don't have to wake up and wonder when the right hook is
coming. I don't have to wonder if the level of abuse is gonna

(28:02):
make you shut your eyes and hope you're somewhere else. Yeah. I
don't have to wonder if if I have food or I don't. I have an
absolutely clean slate and the steps I take are gonna dictate
what I do. Holy **** I'm alone. And that's how the beginning

(28:24):
should be read is there was I won't say fear, shock, alone,
holy **** I'm alone. Did this really just happen? I'm a you
know and then it turned into oh my god I'm alone. And I saw
the opportunity. To be somebody had commented if I see her if I

(28:46):
were to see her at the store I would give her a piece of my I
said well you wouldn't have why? You don't get to go 50
years in the future and make somebody's life hell. That's
not why I wrote it. Mm hmm. Now my mom passed away this last
fall. Mm. I couldn't and I've seen her here and there over my
life. Um the next time I saw her after she had abandoned me

(29:06):
you know I she was already married having new kids but when
she was dying she was no longer verbal and I called had
somebody there turn the phone around so she could see me and I

(29:28):
mom. It's been a hell of a ride man. You know this is wow. But
I wouldn't change a damn thing. It takes every single moment and
nanosecond of your existence to bring for me to talk to you

(29:50):
right now took everything before it. Mm hmm. To get the
person speaking to you right now. Yeah. And I told my mom I
said is it is it how I wanted it? Um no. Did it turn me into
who I am? Absolutely. Mm hmm. And I tell you what mom I'm a
lot of **** fun to hang with. Mm hmm. I and I told her I said I

(30:13):
see you. I don't know what you went through to make you who
you became. I don't know that. But I see the times that you
did work and try. I see that you had a lot of hardship that
I don't even know about. I see that. And I do love you. Not

(30:38):
ready to get reincarnated and go for a second round. Sorry
about your luck there mom. But I told her I said thank you for
what you did do. And she was trying to talk. You can see her
move her jaw and her lips and she couldn't and I said I see

(30:58):
you're trying to talk and I said so today I'm healthy
enough. I'm going to choose you're saying Sue you turned
out so goddamn great. I'd love to hang with you. Why? Yes. Yes
I did mom. Thank you. Mm hmm. And she raised one eyebrow and
you can see she smiled at that. And I said catch you on the
flip side man. You know. Thank you for the ride. I enjoy I I

(31:23):
enjoy the hell out of who I am today. And yeah I told her I
said you want to come haunt me. I'll leave a coffee cup out.
You make it **** weird and I'll put salt at the door. Get your
poison. I love that. Yeah. You can't hold on to the grudges

(31:44):
forever. You can **** you can do whatever you want. But if
it's making your current situation miserable, that's
pretty awful because the current the now is all we have.
They on the show they grab that saying that I have and put it
on one or two whole seasons. Mm hmm. You have the two feet, the
two pieces of earth underneath your feet. That's all you truly

(32:07):
own. At any given moment. Mm hmm. Take today and make today
good. Take this minute and make it good. If you have a choice
to get on the internet and tear somebody down, really
stop. Take a deep breath. Maybe eat a chocolate and think

(32:28):
again. Is it necessary? Cuz if it is, look inside. You probably
have something you need to work on and throw away. Mm hmm. You
know, I wonder how growing up with that kind of emotional
distance with your mom influenced the way you

(32:50):
understand love and connection today. I was put to bed from an
early age on just being screamed at. Nobody could love
you. Why would you think somebody gonna love you? What
the hell is wrong? You got seven A's and one B. You aren't
even **** trying to the point where I'd be crying as a little

(33:13):
kid. Mm hmm. Um how does that shape you? Unless you enjoy
that, you don't choose to keep that as part of your repertoire.
Mm hmm. Um I've never, I don't think I'd be hard pressed to
say that I have seen a handful of good positive role models

(33:36):
even at sixty-three of kind, loving, and fruitful, mutually
beneficial relationships, sexual, adult, or marital
relationships. Um I had no basis for that. Enter in having
a relationship that I shouldn't have been in at a very young

(33:59):
age with a professor. Having enough wherewithal to go, yeah,
I'm too young to handle this. See you when I'm 18, bye. Mm
hmm. Um I've rationalized so much. When you're standing on
Jello, you tend to get really good at reading your next step.

(34:21):
Mm hmm. Not from, it is dangerous. I am going to be
careful. Because then you're anticipating danger, probably
gonna bring it along. Mm hmm. It's like I did with the bear.
Okay, I gotta look around me now. Uh I mentioned to you, I've
got uh before we started, I have bears. Mm hmm. Um there's

(34:42):
two grizzlies that are awake right now. I still got like
eight feet of snow. But we are thirty above down here. Two
grizzlies, there's paw prints on the back of the vehicle that I
have. Um from last night. Um I got a lynx that has just decided
to put up camp in my front yard. Mm hmm. It's obviously a

(35:06):
pregnant female. I don't see any reason to go out and
blaster.
Totally forgot where I was going with this. Oh yeah. The
the how did it shape me? If if you're gonna step somewhere,
I've learned to forecast where's my best possibility for

(35:27):
solid footing. If I bone that, did I bring my floaties? Cuz
I'll be swimming in some **** Mm hmm. Um I'm not.
I'm not good. Maybe. At I love people. Love them. Certain

(35:52):
people. Am I capable of having a relation? Eddie and I fell
head over heels. A minute we saw each other. Moved in by
Friday of that week. Married by spring and had a baby on the
way. Um and it lasted 20 years. Mm hmm.
Some of those years were difficult. Okay. I have the

(36:16):
emotional maturity of of **** bag of Pringles. But that
doesn't mean I don't feel loved. It doesn't mean that I
can't be given and give love. Cuz I'm not good at it. Finding
somebody willing to ride the tide. You know, ski down the

(36:37):
same hill and laugh when you tumble. That's harder. Mm hmm.
But the biggest key thing, the biggest loving relationship
that I have in my life is me.
If I get upset at myself, I have to fix that because I'm

(36:59):
the only person that I'm guaranteed to be with the
minute you are born even earlier to the minute we die
possibly later. Mm hmm. It's guaranteed to be me between my
own two ears. I may import but the guarantee is myself. I gotta
like myself. I gotta respect myself. If you aren't somebody

(37:20):
you can even respect. I dated a dude and he had a lot of I
had a bad childhood. Who the **** didn't? You know,
preaching to the choir here, man. But if you make that your
banner, you're eternally 3 years old and not given the
candy. If you can't affect change, leave it. Mm hmm. Set

(37:47):
the Gucci **** down. I have a quick question about. I don't
know that I have a quick answer.
A quick question about the bear attack. Okay. And what
kept you at Kavik instead of letting it become a place that

(38:08):
reminded you of how close you came to dying. Your perception
is that it is a place I kept myself at that I was so close
to dying. My perception is I figured it out. I survived. I

(38:32):
still like being solitary more than I to give up every my
whole lighthouse lifestyle to give it up because I survived.
The key things I had to understand about my emotional
state post all the surgeries is the emotional one. Would I be

(38:58):
able to be a lighthouse keeper? You gotta keep people safe. Mm
hmm. So, to be at Kavik, it's not if another bear comes
through or if a wolverine decides, hey, you look more
like a Scooby snack or I'm just gonna **** your **** up and by
doing that, maybe you won't have heat. Maybe you won't have

(39:22):
fuel. They bite through your fuel line. You're done. Mm
hmm. Um
Was I, would I, the next time something charges me, will I,
because I think in pictures, it's gonna remind me, I'm gonna

(39:44):
see the attack. Can I remain present in my own mind enough
to go, fine, move that to the side but this is reality.
That's past. This is reality. Mm hmm. The brain is tricky.
Emotions are tricky. Memories are tricky. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Um

(40:05):
would I drop into the zone and be able to handle the
situation? I can fall apart later. What you see on the
show is the first time I had to aggressively go after one after
the attack. I stayed plenty of bears had come through but I I
maintain this if they're gonna come inside, I'll be ready. If

(40:27):
they're gonna come at me, I'm gonna be ready. Mm hmm. But
when the bear came through and he hockey pucked my dog in her
house, Ernie, in her house and then ran off, it was obvious
that this had to be dealt with. I had kids camped out. People
can, they don't have to stay in the rooms. They can camp out on
the state ground. That's very unsafe. So, I had to go after

(40:50):
it. You see me go after him. You see me and I don't cuz I
don't have a television. I don't get to see the episodes
but belly crawling through 682 or whatever the hell. 692
yards of crap to get close enough. I set up the bears into
something he's taken so he had buried something and he was

(41:11):
trying to bring it up and um I'm about seven miles from
camp and at that point, I was still a smoker and I cough. I
had smokers cough. Once I coughed that bear turned around
and started charging. Mm hmm. Instantly in my brain, I see the
attack and the bear coming at me.

(41:36):
I get the benefit of seeing being twisted up, feel the hips
come out of the sockets. Jaws on my throat hearing. I will
never not be able to hear what it sounds like to fracture your
skull with something's teeth. But I had to and I was able to

(41:57):
move that photo to the side. Move that movie to the side
because I needed to see what this bear is actually coming at
me and I dropped into the zone. It's going to be 80 yards here,
120 yards there, about 110. If he comes up, there's three
little draws. Mm hmm. And I got him. First, first shot was
pretty good. You see the blood spray arc. So, they always spin

(42:21):
in a circle. Usually, a right-hand pattern. Most
animals, people don't realize most animals are right pawed
like we are right-handed. Not all of them. We have some
lefties out there and some ambidextrous. And then, he
tried to keep coming and I shot one more time. He curled up but
then he moved himself so that he was facing me. He powered

(42:44):
back on his hind legs as much as he could and laid there.
Here you have a cameraman. He's like, oh, let's get there.
He's done. I'm like, nope. Rule of thumb. Give yourself some
minutes here. You know, you need to take X amount of
minutes and make sure. You saw what he did and he powered up.

(43:06):
He is saving his, that was not, oh my gosh, I've been hurt.
That roar you heard. Um it was anger. It was rage. All that
bear knows right now is he has one more shot to take me out.
So, I'm gonna outweigh it. Mm hmm. And then you come at it
from the backside. You go all the way around. Come at it from

(43:29):
the backside. Now, that bear has to do a three-point turn. It
has to get up, pivot, and come at me. Guaranteed, he wasn't
gonna have that much. I would have time. If I needed to take
another shot. The long and short of it is, why did I stay?
Cuz it's home.

(43:51):
As long as I can handle the pressure and separate old
reality from current reality, then I'm good to go. Yeah. Yeah.
If all I felt in that instant was fear and I freeze and I
can't handle it, then I have no business being there. I am not

(44:14):
the right person to run the camp or be there. But I did it.
I handled it.
Anybody that needs to know, yes, I I got all the meat. I
got the hide. I got the bones. I got everything I needed. Mm
hmm. As as we are there was a safety guy there. He's as the

(44:42):
bear is charging, he's probably a good time. Not a good time to
say I've never really shot a weapon and I'm like, I don't
want to hear the word safety. And but afterwards, I said,
okay, you gotta go to 692 or whatever the hell amount of
yards. There's over 682. Yeah. You gotta go back, get the

(45:02):
four-wheelers, bring them up. But it's getting dark. Not my
problem, safety man. I said, we gotta keep those headlights.
Park them this way because that second bear and they said,
second bear and I said, right there. Yeah. And here's another
bear. Circling us.

(45:26):
That kind of stuff. Not the death part. Not the shooting
part. Not the, ooh, I've gotta kill something. I always need
to make sure there's a situation where I come out on
top. That's not what it is. Having the ability to protect
myself or others, that's that's a given. I need that. Mm hmm.
Yeah. Being able to foresee, how do I get fuel? How do I

(45:52):
get food? How do I grow my own food? Mm hmm. How do I keep
fuel on hand? Running a business. The only thing I knew
about diesel mechanics when I got there was how to bake
bread. Mm, okay. Uh it's a lifestyle that affords me to

(46:13):
exercise my right to learn every day. It affords me the
way that I live my life affords me the chance morning and
night to go over every single thing I've done and go, ooh,
might wanna work on that, Sue. Hmm, have you thought about

(46:33):
archery? Cuz your shoulders suck, Sue.
People telling me, oh yeah, she can't hit the broad side of a
barn anymore. After nine surgeries and having to replace
all that stuff on my right side. It it's not the barn
doors. It's the windows, you prick. Um I've got barn doors

(46:55):
all over my trophy room. It's the windows. Yeah. Come on.
Quit being mean. You've never seen an animal get away. Mm
hmm. What happens out there in Cavic if you begin doubting
yourself? Oh, if I begin doubting myself, I can't
imagine doubting myself. I don't doubt myself. I discover

(47:20):
things I might not be good at anymore but that's not doubting
yourself. That's being honest with yourself. Mm hmm. I mean,
it's potato, potato. Um actually, it's potato, tomato.
Two different things.
Have no business being there.

(47:43):
If I cannot financially figure it out, a plane that pre-covid
cost 1250 bucks to bring up six people in gear. Now cost ten to
12 thousand each way. Wow. Is there any logical reason for

(48:03):
that much increase? Only other entities that want to take the
camp from me. Um it is a hot spot right now for some of the
things going on in our political scene. Uh but the
things that ensues world make me a poor candidate for being

(48:25):
the warden of Cavic. If I can't afford to be there, I won't be
there. You have to, like I said before you asked me, I said,
you can't just end up at Cavic. It can't happen. It's a
decision. You are so far removed. It is so difficult to
get supplies in but I'm challenge driven and I love

(48:49):
making, I love making it work for the people. People come up
and some people are like, yeah, I'm vegan and you know, it's
not just a hunting camp. I know the show kept really harping on
it's a hunting camp. It is a any reason you're in the
Arctic and need to do what you need to do camp. I don't care

(49:11):
what you're going to do out here. Don't hurt little kids
because I'll hurt you back. But if you want to go rafting,
hey, I'll help you. I'll I'll do some logistics. You want to
go hiking? Hey, bring a guide. You know, you're you're from
Indiana and this **** different. You want to hunt? I

(49:32):
can help you. I can't help you hunt but I can give you a room
to do it from. You want to do oil and gas work? Hey, you
know, here's some rooms. The majority of my clientele was
science and education. Um little known thing. Most of

(49:54):
the money from the show. I lost two grandchildren. Hmm. Lost
other people. Uh I help kids with cancer. I help people that
need help. I'm a grown **** woman. I have a job. I can make
money. Anything extra is a blessing. It only stays that
way if you give it away with no strings attached. Not saying I

(50:18):
never bought anything nice for myself. As sure as hell did. A
lot of it. I worked a little harder. Mm hmm. Um
If my body and it is a barrier that I'm running up against. I
in the last couple of seasons of the show, you heard me say

(50:38):
it hurts more.
I had to have my neck fused between the snow machine
accident and the bear incident. Had to fuse the
neck. C345 I think it was C34567 that we fused. Okay.
I'm still moving it very well. The doctor feels I'm moving it

(51:00):
a little too well. They want to do some scans and make sure I
didn't pull a a bolt or two out. Okay. I can't afford it
so no. But
I wasn't allowed to shoot a high-powered rifle for a couple
of years. I tried it. I tried the twenty gauge and I did get

(51:21):
a goose. I was so proud of myself. Mm hmm. Okay. It hurt
like hell. Yeah. Um now sleeping is kind of a nightmare. It
hurts a lot. This was a brutally cold winter. Brutally
cold. And my body is is having a reaction to it. But it's in
its mid 60s. I mean this **** gonna happen. It's probably
gonna get worse. Those are things that I need to weigh.

(51:47):
And in my world, I have to be brutally honest about where I'm
at. Because if I lie to myself and I stay the warden of Kavik
too long, logic says the universe is gonna throw me
somebody that I need to run to save and my body says, not
today, Satan. Your legs aren't gonna work. Now, what you're

(52:10):
gonna do? Yeah. So, being brutally honest, you have to
apply it to yourself, not just the situation. Um am I at that
point now? No. Is it coming up? Yes. When you were deciding
whether or not to do Life Below Zero, you say that you

(52:31):
didn't wanna become a reality TV caricature. Now that you've
been on the show for years, how do you feel about the way
people perceive you? I don't know that I don't know that I've
said I don't wanna be a reality star caricature. That might be
your interpretation. Well, I think it was in the book. Huh.

(52:52):
Well, that's true. I just I don't usually phrase it like
that. Well, okay. Maybe they got tired of my swearing. Um I
what I don't want. Don't try to tell me what to do. It's not
gonna work out great. Film what we do. Don't become what we
do. Don't tell me what to do. The fear of becoming, okay, a

(53:19):
reality star or a television caricature where you know
you're gonna walk in swagger. Cue the dogs. Pet the dog.
That's **** Um
I'm a mouthful no matter who takes a bite.

(53:42):
Like I had said to you earlier in this interview, just if you
just ask a question, you're gonna find out 50 million other
things. Yeah. Yeah. The story tells itself. Get the best
cameraman because that's what you're gonna wanna get on film.
We did 23 seasons of the show.

(54:07):
Are some of the episodes, oh my god, if they do one more
hunting episode, hey, I'm 1000 mile round trip from the
closest store and now $24000 of flying. Mm hmm. Yeah, I gotta do
a little hunting. I cannot hunt for the people that I feed that
stay in the camp. That will always have to be flown in. You

(54:28):
cannot hunt for profit. Um but for my own 10 months out of the
year when I don't see other people and II wanna eat. Um I
eat according to how much energy I'm expending. When you
see Susie getting a little fat, suddenly, I'm I'm eating more
calories than I'm expending. I'm either getting ready. I

(54:50):
used to say, okay, winter's coming. I gotta put on twenty
to thirty pounds cuz one good 5060 below blow. Um and
something breaks outside. 4 hours, you can drop thousands
of calories. Hmm. You know. Okay. You've gotta, you've
gotta maintain a little bit of fat. Not enough to have a
**** heart attack but How has my perception changed from not

(55:16):
wanting to be a caricature? I stayed true to who I am. Disney
gets involved. They bought Nat Geo. Hey, here's a list.
Where's six words we don't want you to say and I said, here,
here's a couple names cuz those are the people you can hire to
go. I am who I am. Yeah. I will try to watch things and I said

(55:42):
on one, there were two words that I was like, I don't even
know what those are. So, that's like some made up California
swear word. It's younger than I am. I don't know what that is.
I may have to look it up and use it now.
What made the show so different is they celebrated who we are,

(56:09):
who we think we are, and how we think we need to live our lives
with that knowledge. They kinda looked at me a lot and
went, you wanna, you wanna make what? You wanna go, what? Why
would you wanna go do that?

(56:30):
Because it's there. Mm hmm. Why did we go to the moon? Cuz it's
**** there. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I'm a three-year-old that just got a
$100 bill and I get to go fill out the shopping cart. I wanna
take big red, go up the hill, and start getting those old
barrels that are up there cuz I wanna make something. Mm hmm.

(56:52):
Doesn't have to make sense to you. Film it. It has to make
sense to me. Mm hmm. Cuz in the end, it's not about how you
live life below zero. Cuz look at her. She's **** giddy. She
just found a coffee can. Seriously? Well, it is kinda
cool. But I think maybe people can watch, see, relate to it

(57:18):
even if it's not their lifestyle. Do you know how many
times I walk down that pasture? I've gone over here and I
thought, I should pick that up. That would make a good flower
box. Mm hmm. Yeah, do it. Sometimes you have to see
somebody. I don't just live outside the box. I'm skipping

(57:38):
down a path that nobody else sees. And like I say, the last
thing I have to do on the planet is side sliding to home
plate. Mm hmm. Don't have to have my hair on fire. That'd be
a little weird. But I should be able to instantaneously mark
the dust off and go, **** that was a rush, man. Let's do it

(58:02):
again. Let's do it again. Yeah.
I read North to the Future by Ben Weissenbach a while back
and in it, he briefly mentions how a fan broke into your
trailer and waited for you with a knife. In what ways did that

(58:23):
affect your views on fame and public exposure? Um this was
somebody and it wasn't breaking into a trailer. They broke into
the Twinkie. Okay, okay. And I and breaking in, it's not
locked. Okay. Um I mean, when I'm in it at night, yes. And

(58:45):
not because I don't trust people. It, any animal pushing
from the outside if you have the lock, they're gonna have to
go two or three times to break it. That gives you enough time
to go **** something's going down and you can grab your gun
and be ready. That's the reason you do that. But I, oh,
there was a gentleman that had been writing a couple of years.

(59:08):
Hey, I wanna come up and go hunting with my family. Is that
a thing? Yep, it's a thing. And when you wanna do it? Oh, this
fall would be great. Okay. Yep, there's four of us. My wife,
myself, the two kids. Alright. And then before they were
supposed to come out, hey, we had a whole bunch of stuff
happen. Can I take the deposit and put it towards the next
year? Yeah, I don't do that a lot but yes, we'll do that. Um

(59:34):
sorry, hope things get better. Following year, I just have a
bunch of shots. You saw me in the early episodes getting
shots in the feet. I fell from twenty-two feet. Landed on
directly flat on my feet. Busted up all the lymph system.
Busted up both feet and ankles and legs. Had to, I had to have

(59:54):
a lot of work done. Mm hmm. So, the aftermath is I had to have
shots for a while. Um and this family was supposed to show up.
I get up there and there's no family. I'm supposed to stay
off my feet for a few days. That doesn't happen in my
world. Um I had a family member helping out and I said, hey,

(01:00:17):
did that family get in? No, actually just the one guy did.
Hmm. Really? Yeah, asking all kinds of questions about you
and kinda weird. No, alright. Well, whatever. Set out all the
plates and I notice he never came in. You wanna go knock on
his trailer and let him know food is here. And I go from the

(01:00:40):
back of the dining hall, there's a door and you can walk to the
back of the Twinkie. And at that point, I did not have the
Arctic Entryways. Um but anyways, I get in there and
here's this guy standing in the Twinkie and he's got a
big old Bowie knife and he's twisting it and he's twisting

(01:01:01):
it and his lights aren't on. Nobody's even home. Geez. And
I'm like, can I help you? And he says, yeah. You didn't even
say anything yet. And you can see the guy, you know, lights on
nobody's home. You haven't even told me you love me yet. I've
been here and he's taking his knife and pointing it down and
I said, oh my god, this is too good. This is the dream that

(01:01:24):
everybody that owns a weapon has. He's like, what are you
talking about? And I pulled out the pistol that's always on my
hip and I pointed it at him, cocked it back and I said, you
just brought a knife to a gunfight. Who doesn't wanna
have a point in their life where they say that? And he's
oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Hold on a minute. And I called

(01:01:45):
out. Seal team six happened to be camped out right between me
and the river. Oh, wow. Hey, you know, and he's like, yo,
what's up? And they come in and they say, oh, we will deal with
this. And I said, nope. You're gonna walk him to the runway.
I'm calling. He's gonna get picked up. He's gone. And they

(01:02:06):
took the knife out of his hand and gave it to me. I actually
I'm looking at it right now. I kicked the guy out. He got no
refunds. Made a report. I have a list of people that are no
longer allowed to fly in and out of Kavik. And you kept the
knife. Absolutely. I can get it and put it. If we were on

(01:02:27):
video, I could go grab it and show it to you right now. Wow.
How did that make me change? How I feel about television. It
doesn't make me feel differently about television
other than if you notice in the book, I don't go into massive

(01:02:51):
details about the kids. Massive details about guessing what
other people feel, saying where they live, saying what they do.
Those are not my stories to tell. I got a first-hand
experience that and there's been a couple other people that

(01:03:13):
just are a little a bubble off center, you know.
I can't blame the show for somebody that feels some person
watching suddenly goes off into left field. That's not the
show's fault. It is a fact that I like to describe the

(01:03:39):
first time the show brought me and they used to do in the very
beginning. They would say sue in the city and they put me in
Washington DC, California, New York City and I get to New York
City and you have the camera crew around you. You have
people looking at you and it's a stoplight and the sidewalks
there. They're not even a sidewalk man. They are like a

(01:04:02):
lane for traffic. They're wide. They're huge like 12 feet wide
is what my brain wants to tell me and every building is right
there, you know and every surface is reflective and the
light turns green and all of a sudden this wall of people

(01:04:23):
started coming at me and I was so overwhelmed and I ran to the
building and I put my face in towards it and I said, leave
me alone. Leave me alone. This is too much. Meet a minute and
people were going past and they asked me, I said, what the hell
just happened? I said in my world when something is coming

(01:04:45):
at you from across the field, I can look at a bear charging and
I can see pretty much what his intent is is that an angry they
are full on 60 mile an hour, 40 to 60 mile an hour charge and
they're slathering and this is going to be bad. Are they

(01:05:08):
chasing their cubs? Look around. Is there food they're
after? You can pick and see it with an animal. They're
instinctual. What in the world are they coming at you for? The
caribou. If they're all charging you, something's behind
them making them. It's easy to read. Yeah. But you get that
wall of people coming at me. Humans are supposed to be

(01:05:33):
reasoning creatures. We reason I have so many examples of that
not being the case, but we have that capability, but you put
that wall of people coming at me and my brain could not pick
out who the Jeffrey Dahmer is and it was overwhelming people
hide their true intent. You know, there's this part in the

(01:05:58):
book where you say that maybe you've chosen to live a life
that's more animal than human and I feel that applies here.
Yeah. Animals don't get it wrong.
And and I do. I've had more honesty from the animals. I've

(01:06:21):
had more nurturing from the animals. Go back to Pat White.
Susie, you're gonna have a hard life. Animals are gonna play a
big part. Work on that.
I have a highly reasoning brain.

(01:06:45):
But in the end, I mean your instincts have to guide you to
a certain degree and I think as a society quite possibly as a
as a species on the planet, you know, we are just one species
call us homo sapiens. We are human. We come in a lot of

(01:07:05):
freaking colors, languages, religious and political
beliefs.
Settle down on our differences and embrace the the collective.
What do we have in common thing? Yeah. Yeah.
But yeah, I think it applies in most of my life.

(01:07:32):
Even here, I go outside. Doggo is there. I know I have a
lynx just for whatever reason, she has probably picked some
place on here. She's gonna have her kids. That's gonna make it
hard for her. I'm gonna make it hard for me too. But

(01:07:55):
I listen. Anything that's out of the norm, I focus on. It's
the same thing here. What's hard for me? There's trees
everywhere. Up in the Arctic, I don't have that. I get on top
of the trailer. I scan as quickly as you can turn your
body. I scan my surroundings and then I look around for a
minute and I come back off but my brain will go, whoa, whoa,

(01:08:18):
whoa, whoa. Stop. Go back at 187 degrees. What the **** was
that? And I look over there and I go, oh, damn it. You're
right. There is no bush there. Yeah, I've been up there almost
30 years. I know every rock, barrel, and bush. Mm hmm. And I

(01:08:39):
look and I go, you're right. And then I pull it up. Your brain
will notice that which does not belong. But it is more of an
animalistic trait. Mm hmm.
After 12 years and 23 seasons, life below zero ended. What

(01:09:03):
does it feel like to close that chapter? You know, for for us,
it's more like 13, almost 14 years because you're working
for a solid year before you ever see the first show. Um
you're filming and then it has to go through editing and then
it finally comes on. So, by the time you're seeing season one,
we're already into season two filming. Mm hmm. Um As that

(01:09:29):
show has ended. Made actually not a lot of sense. When it
ended to any of us, it was the number one show. It's still
number one even in reruns. Hmm. Um and we have a new CEO at
Disney. There is people got so upset. Why are they doing that?
You tell them they have to the god. They're gosh darn so and

(01:09:51):
so's and I said actually Disney wanted to go back to making
cartoons and documentaries and Nat Geo's involved and they
want to, you know, great things in the world and they've
gotten into some um hard-hitting journalistic
newscasting. Uh Mariana Von Zeller, freaking awesome human.
Um you can't fault a business for changing their business

(01:10:14):
plan up a little bit. Mm hmm. I'm not angry at Disney or Geo.
Kind of wish I had, you know, like lifetime rights at
Disneyland but I'm still living my life. People, twelve,
thirteen years, whatever you want to call it for the show.
I've been at Cavic almost 30. I was there a long time before

(01:10:38):
the show got there. I'm still there after. Mm hmm. Uh 1 day
and only I know that date. It will come to a halt for me and
it'll be time for somebody else to be the master or the the
warden of Cavic. Um the body, it's probably an age thing
that'll get me.

(01:10:59):
How do I want to leave it? Part of me doesn't want to leave
it all and the next part, I'm already there. The day after
they closed and I got my pants in one leg went in one leg of
the pants. The other foot went through the other leg. I put my
socks on, got my left shoe on. The second I had that right

(01:11:19):
shoe on, tied and I took my first step. I'm already beyond
the show and I'm back into my fully connected life. Mm hmm.
Is it a bummer to some degree that I'm not sharing with
people? Yes. Because II kinda have a unique, I think, a
unique repertoire with you. You wanna call him fans. I call

(01:11:42):
him home fries. I just think fan. That's that's kind of an
ego stroke. Um they're just friends I hadn't met yet. Mm
hmm. Okay. And there's a lot of them and it's been a lot of
years and it was a couple of years of different shows prior
to that. Um before that, I did some stuff with Japanese film
and and and Disney way before that. People are interested in

(01:12:08):
what I do and have been for a lifetime. Mm hmm. If they want
to do another show, they better not sit on it too long
cuz I got the coffee mug and t-shirt on this **** and it's
time for me to keep rolling. Yeah. I've only, I have been on
the planet longer than I have left on it. People need to look

(01:12:32):
at, where are you at in your life? Are you twenty? We don't
get to know when our exit strategy is but I can tell you
at sixty-three, I've been here longer than I have left. I'm
probably not making it to 126. So, time is definitely
continuing to tick. If you want to film it and share it, get

(01:12:52):
off your booty and figure that out cuz I put both shoes on and
I made a step forward. Sue, you know, something I'm noticing
that's been a through line in this conversation is that I'm

(01:13:16):
not sure if you think about death a lot or if you talk
about death a lot but death seems like it's ever present in
your life if not in your mind. Um it's not uh I am not worried
about death. Death is by our side every single moment. The

(01:13:41):
trick to being alive is very sketchy. Ask anybody who walked
across the street and got hit by a bus. They didn't see that
one coming. I'm not afraid of death but I am brutally honest.
It could happen at any time. Therefore, it reinforces my

(01:14:01):
belief that I need to make today **** awesome. Um have I
been exposed to a lot of death? Yeah, lose two husbands. One
when you're pregnant. Um
Losing grandchildren. Not an experience I can recommend.

(01:14:24):
We lose people. Death is not some ominous hooded figure
that goes outside your door. At least I don't think so. But it
does come for all of us. I guess I talk about it more
because I get asked a lot about it. It's the next step in life.

(01:14:51):
Mm hmm. Doesn't mean you're paranoid about it. But I
certainly would take my hat out of the clouds and and take off
the rose colored glasses. You know, I mean, unless that's
your bent. Maybe you look good in them. Yeah. I don't think

(01:15:15):
death is scary. I don't think personally, it's not the end of
the line. As energetic beings, energy changes shape. Mm hmm.
Mm hmm. Changes trajectory maybe depending on what's
around it. Mm hmm. But the skin suit just contains what's going

(01:15:40):
on right now. Yeah. Yeah. My little ball of light isn't
gonna stop. I'm not gonna say it's strolling down something
in the clouds with gold paved roads. That doesn't make any
kind of sense to me at all. But do I believe there's
something more after? Sure. Why not? Do I think do I hope

(01:16:01):
there's reincarnation? **** yes cuz this has been a pretty
cool ride. Has it been challenging? Absolutely. Am I
proud of myself for navigating it? Yep. Do I still feel
there's a lot to do? Absolutely. I don't know. I
think people that spend their time being afraid of death are

(01:16:25):
already one foot in.
Makes sense.
What about Kavik? What's it like thinking about leaving
Kavik? It's the worst possible thing.

(01:16:46):
I think of Kavik as almost an entity, a life force. I am
Kavik. Kavik is me. Mm hmm. The reality is
It could be gone in a moment.

(01:17:06):
We
are experiencing
global leaders saying there's an oil crisis. Kavik is in the
middle of the oil fields. If the words eminent domain come
up, I'm out.

(01:17:30):
I talk about my foxes. My river, my this, my that.
Technically, it's not mine at all.
I have never even though people accuse me, I've never tamed
those foxes. People, how is your fox? And I'm like, dude, I
have twelve to eighteen of them that are my buddies that have

(01:17:52):
chosen. I've seen twenty-seven. This is twenty-eight now.
Series of kits born right under my feet. And I've never harmed
them.
It would crush me.
To be replaced and have somebody hurt them. You can't,

(01:18:17):
you should not tame the wild creatures. Have I ever been
clumsy with a ham sandwich? Yeah, yes. Um but I like the
ones where the parents abandon them. Taught them as much as I
could about how to trigger their instincts so they could
figure out the hunting. And they're all doing really great.

(01:18:41):
And they are like on what? Season four of their own kids.
Four or five.
Kavik is a part of my life, a part of my heart, a part of how
I think, why I think, will I miss it? Boy, there's not

(01:19:01):
really a good description of how I'm going to feel. Whether
I have chosen it or it is thrust upon me. Mm hmm. But
logic says it's coming.
There was one winter I ran out of fuel. They couldn't deliver

(01:19:23):
it to me. The weather was bad for months. Just like this
winter. Just freaking blows one after the other. One after the
other. The planes can't land. I can't get out there. I did not
have enough jet fuel. I had one more run I could do on the
runway to clear it. So we had to know we had a break in the

(01:19:46):
weather. I had to go months without standard heat. Only
because of who I am and how I approach life and how I have
trained myself to think of every possible
scenario you call it like death death death. There's a lot of
things that can kill you. It's not that I'm dwelling on the

(01:20:07):
death part. I'm looking at oh **** Yeah, if I didn't have
heat for 3 months in the middle of winter, that would suck. How
do I combat that? Okay, keep candles on board, make the clay
pots, do this. Great. Propane. Gotta have some propane there.
Great. Make sure you got enough of those little heaty things
because first thing I did is I put all those underneath the

(01:20:30):
first layer of the bed. My beds are always four or five feet up
off the ground. Why? Hot air rises, cold air sinks. Give the
cold air somewhere to go. I had my dog with me and so I had to
keep him warm. You create a much, you put a tent on your
bed and you create a much smaller area that you have to

(01:20:50):
worry about. You don't have to be 6070 degrees. You just can't
be 40 below. Mm hmm. But I made it but it took a big toll on my
body. I don't think I have it in me to do that again.
One day, my time at Kavik will be somebody else's start at

(01:21:11):
Kavik. Could happen tomorrow. Could happen 5 years from now.
Hopefully, I am graceful about my exit. Hopefully, I forgive
myself for being a wine baby about it. And assuredly, at the

(01:21:36):
same time experiencing all of that, I'm gonna be like, oh my
god, I could make this and I could do this. Oh, wow. And a
part of me will already be soup that 3 year old with the $100
bill is gonna be super excited about. Oh my god, I could. What
do you hate the most, Sue? Snakes and spiders. Let's go

(01:21:59):
build a camp where it's sunny, hot, and you're gonna get ****
up by something that don't have legs. I'm challenge driven.
There's always gonna be another challenge. Yeah. Kavik as an
area can't fulfill its potential if I'm always

(01:22:20):
describing how it needs to be. Sooner or later, somebody else
gets the crown.
You've talked about entering what you call the twilight era
of your life. What is this next chapter look like for you? No

(01:22:40):
idea. That's forecasting. I don't really look too far into
the future. Um I don't know. I won't know till I get there.
I don't know. I won't know till I get there. What I what can I
tell you is I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid to try anything.

(01:23:04):
There's lots of places I haven't been yet. There's a
part of me that still wants to. I wanna go to Africa and see
the mysterious creatures that I've heard about but I haven't
necessarily seen. Elephants, giraffes, zebras, stuff like

(01:23:24):
that. Um
Swimming in every single ocean that you can. Jumping into the
Dead Sea and finding out you can't even sink.
The world is an incredible place. There's so many things.
Walk the old roads from the old civilizations. Why did they die

(01:23:45):
out? They had a perfectly **** good road. I wanna see it
for myself. I could live four lifetimes and still find that
I oh **** I missed that. Gotta come back again.
I like being the curious kid. So yeah, am I emotionally

(01:24:07):
somewhere between six, seven, eight, five? Yup. In some
degrees I am.
Is age creeping up on me? I absolutely forget what I'm
talking about while I'm talking about it sometimes. I can see
the word and I can no longer read it. So maybe I do get
Sue Heimers here and there.

(01:24:32):
I don't know what's coming next. Just that it's coming.
Well, Sue, those are all the questions I have for you. I
wanna thank you for this time, for talking with me about your

(01:24:52):
life, and for showing the world a different way to live. One
that's stripped down, self-reliant, and connected to
nature. You know,
something that I I like to make clear. I don't say my life's

(01:25:13):
lifestyle is the best. It's really good for me. But you
know, I'll I'll see people on socials and well, you you
basically are telling us that our lives suck and yours is
great and it's like, no, actually, I never said that.
My lifestyle wouldn't, golly, I don't even know how many

(01:25:37):
people on the planet would really want to do what I do,
how I do it. Build a better wheel, do it your own way,
that's great, but it's it's a it's a bit much for most
people, but it suits me to a T. I also had somebody, well, I
guess she's no longer afraid of living in a big city and going

(01:25:59):
and seeing things and hating people, you know, and I was
like, I never said I hated people. I don't wanna live
right next door to you. That's a fact. But it doesn't follow
if I go to the Emmys and I'm wearing, I have hair dye,
titty tape, and a beautiful dress on. That's what the
occasion calls for. Yeah. And I'm sorry as a female getting

(01:26:22):
dressed up and looking pretty hot. Damn, that's not a bad
gig. Yeah. Do I walk around camp in it? No. Am I grateful
that I've lived a life that gives me so much of the
spectrum? Morgan Freeman made me a recording. Susan, you

(01:26:43):
must get up now. This is God. I have created a new day for you
and it is wonderful. I got walked down the blue carpet and
the red carpet by some pretty distinguished people. Also
spent a night at the Emmys with a little kid that was all
feeling bad about some things. My feet hurt. I took my shoes

(01:27:07):
off. I was like, dude, I'm out. You know, I've led a blessed
life. Blessings come side by side with curses. Maybe if you
wanna call it that, I don't ever feel that things I went
through were cursed. They weren't great sometimes but I

(01:27:27):
turned it into what can I learn from this? What can I share
with this? The crap that happens isn't how to define me.
The fact that I still giggle, grab that $100 bill and scream
off to the store to buy some zots. That's pretty cool. I have

(01:27:47):
a 20 year old poodle. Why do you never see him on the show?
They deemed he wasn't Alaskan enough. I know. He's looking at
me right now. His name's Mr. Bill.
But oh. Dang it. Sorry. As I'm talking to you, I'm looking out

(01:28:09):
my window and there's a grouse just sitting there looking like
dinner. You might need to go get it. I think I need to get
out the the handbook for hunting because I think it's
like April 2nd and they shut the grouse hunting off. That's
usually when this guy comes around. He's like giving me the

(01:28:30):
middle wing like, I'll get it another year, Sue.
You can support this podcast at Patreon.com slash Crude

(01:28:51):
Magazine. You can also support this podcast with a one-time
payment at BuyMeACoffee.com slash Crude Magazine. Crude
Conversations is written, hosted, and produced by me,
Cody Liska for Crude Magazine.
Music was produced by Elkota Beats.

(01:29:21):
Music by Elkota Beats.