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Susan Aikens, World's Most Isolated Cubs Fan, Wept When Cubs Won Pennant

By Justin Breen | October 25, 2016 6:05am
 Sue Aikens, a star on
Sue Aikens, a star on "Life Below Zero" lives in remote Alaska and is a diehard Cubs fan.
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Sue Aikens

CHICAGO — Susan Aikens might be the world's most isolated Cubs fan.

That hasn't stopped Aikens, a star on the TV show "Life Below Zero," from celebrating her favorite team's trip to this year's World Series, which begins Tuesday night in Cleveland.

Aikens is warden of the Kavik River Camp in far northern Alaska, 500 miles from the nearest city, Fairbanks.

Aikens, who was born in Chicago in 1963 and grew up in the northwest suburbs, has lived in Alaska for more than 30 years and at Kavik — a base for up to 83 hunters, ecotourists or scientists — for the last 10. Kavik has an airstrip — the only way in and out of the camp — and the closest road is more than 80 miles away.

"I left Chicago but kept my Cubbies with me," she wrote DNAinfo in an email Monday night. "No matter how remote I go, they are my companions. ... What has the season been like for the most remote Fan??? Hope. It started out small, then snow-balled into the Greatest of Hopes and then YAHOO.... WTH just Happened??!! THE CUBS ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!! MY CUBBIES!!!"

Aikens said she cried when she found out the Cubs had advanced to their first World Series since 1945.

"I am not exactly a delicate Rose prone to weeping, but I cried," she wrote. "Yup like a big ole Tundra Blossom, I wept tears of happiness. It wouldn't stop. ... I powered up the Internet phone and called my fellow Cubs fans and we were all weeping happy babies. Why? What is it about the home teams that a real Chicagoan can't shake. It's like Mom... Apple Pie and the way things should be. You are either Sox or Cubs, not a lot of waffle room. This is as close to Heaven a Cubs fan can get!"

For most of the year, Aikens is alone with the exception of TV crews and the wildlife around her, including the several foxes she's befriended. There also are 80-some grizzly bears in the camp's vicinity, and one nearly killed Aikens after attacking her and leaving her for dead nine years ago.

"Life Below Zero" debuted in 2013 on the National Geographic Channel. Past shows have included Aikens killing a grizzly and a pair of caribou. She uses the animals' protein to survive the extreme winter, when temperatures can drop to minus-60 degrees.

Aikens still wears an old blue Cubs shirt — a gift from a nephew — she's had for years, and she does her best to see the North Siders on the Internet. She also checks out the NFL's Bears and enjoys trash-talking with Green Bay Packers fans on her Facebook page.

"I have been a Bears and Cubbies fan for my whole life, and while you sometimes have to defend that position with flair, this [Cubs] season has been magical start to finish," she wrote. "I can't always get the games but have faithful buddies who give me the play by play in messages. ... I don't have much on my bucket list I haven't done yet, but seeing the Cubs win the World Series is one of them."

Aikens has never minded solitude. When she was a child and people asked her what she wanted to be when she was older, her response was always a lighthouse keeper. Aikens said there's never a boring day in Kavik, and she loves cracking herself up.

Aikens, who has a son, daughter and three grandchildren, hasn't been to the Chicago area since the 1990s, when her grandfather died. Aikens' last significant amount of time in the city was in 1976.

"Go get em Cubbies ... and save me a seat at the game," she wrote. "You can take the girl out of Chicago, but you can't take Chicago out of this girl!"

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