Suzi, how have you been enjoying your stay here at Kulik Lodge? I tell you, it's been a magical moment for me. In life you really have to enjoy every day because you only have so many and this is certainly at the top of my list. I enjoy the outdoors so much and here you really, truly feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. What sort of activities have you been able to participate in here?

Suzi Hanna

I've been doing a lot of fishing for rainbow and in Montana when we go fishing I get excited when I catch a rainbow that's about ten inches long and here we're pulling in rainbow that are about eighteen or twenty inches long. It just blows my mind that we're able to catch anything like that.

Another highlight is an incredible biologist here by the name of Tom Smith. He's brilliant at being able to relay the material in an understandable way. You take a walk through the tundra and you look at it and think, "gosh this is beautiful" but when he starts explaining the berries and the plants he just brings the entire environment alive. It becomes more than a painting because when I look at it as an artist I see the painting before the landscape. I see the beautiful colors - the reds, the greens, the golds and the blue. When he talks about the environment, he really brings it alive.

Did you expect to see so many bears?

No, I didn't. I'm blown away because I was here last year and we didn't see one bear at Kulik Lodge. We saw them over at Brooks but we didn't see any bears here. So for me to be fishing and have one right behind you - it's an incredible feeling that I've never experienced before. I've seen pictures of it and I thought, there's no way that could possibly be for real. And we're experiencing the same thing. Just today, someone that I was fishing with caught a fish and our guide said, "you have got to release the fish. You have got to pull really hard and get that fish off of your line because that bear wants your fish." And that's what he had to do. He had to really jerk his line and make the tension so tight that the fish popped off his line.

Of course, he lost his hook but who cares! That's kind of exciting. That's a highlight for us to have to have someone break the line because the bear was too close and I'm telling you that bear was close! And you know, in Glacier National Park if you see a bear a hundred yards away you panic. So, it's pretty amazing that these bears show no aggression at all.