In NORTH OF ORDINARY, Sue Aikens traces an intriguing journey from abandonment to self-respect and self-care that covers nearly every aspect of nature loving, arctic living and bear wrestling.

Aikens’ father was mysteriously missing from her life, and her mother demonstrated mainly hatred for her fifth child. She felt useless and unwanted, declaring, “I had become accustomed to not being good enough.” Then, on a trek to Alaska, sharing a tent in the wilderness, her mother disappeared.

Aikens, who was 12 at the time, gradually grasped that she would have to forge her own life. She managed to feed herself, finding a job as a babysitter and a cabin in which to live. With support from neighbors and family connections, she learned to hunt and trap, shoot and eat animals, trade furs, and know herself more thoroughly than most people her age.

"The book combines intimate auras of self-discovery and recovery with a strong sense of humor and descriptive powers that will amaze and enchant readers across a wide spectrum."

Over the years, Aikens would rise from “not good enough” to the very best at everything she undertook. She melded with the stark frozen world she inhabited, often living alone and isolated. However, one of her marriages gave her a son and a daughter, both of whom became a mainstay of her will to set an example of explorative, seemingly indomitable grit.

A particularly enthralling portion of Aikens’ memoir (which she wrote with bestselling author Michael Vlessides) recounts a minute-by-minute attack by a bear, followed by a period of agony, self-searching and slow recovery. Following many twists and turns, some of which she created herself, she became a star on National Geographic’s “Life Below Zero.” When a legal rift with the show’s producers led to its cancellation after an impressive 23 seasons, she knew “it was time to go” --- time to rebuild and embrace the wilderness and her staunch, determined wildness.

Aikens currently manages the Kavik River Camp above the Arctic Circle. A noted and acclaimed expert in survival skills, she has groomed herself in engineering and mechanical abilities, as well as the basic traits of life in a cold, lonely, frozen ambience.

NORTH OF ORDINARY clearly showcases Aikens’ gifts as a wordsmith. The book combines intimate auras of self-discovery and recovery with a strong sense of humor and descriptive powers that will amaze and enchant readers across a wide spectrum. Perhaps it will inspire others to follow in her snowy, stalwart footsteps.