MG: First I would like to thank both of you for agreeing to this interview. I know after the cover shot leaked on to the internet you especially, Melissa, have been swamped with interview requests. We appreciate your giving  M.G the exclusive.

Melissa: Well M.G. hired me to do the cover. I just thought it fair that the story be printed here first.

MG: Who else was out their on the ice that day.

Melissa: There was five of us. Two of Dan's support people and the Guide that drove us out there on the snow cat.

MG:  So this story is corroborated by others.

Melissa:  (laughing) Oh yes, it is corroborated by ..lets see, the Rangers of the Lake Clarke National preserve, the Alaskan fish and game commission, the Alaskan state police and Alaskan animal rescue.

MG: Tell us a little about the trip to the lake from the preserve. Did your guide give you any advice on what you might expect, or offer any kind of safety tips?

Melissa: (giggles) Oh yes, he was an expert in Alaskan culture and cuisine. Lets see he told us how to field dress a Moose using only a pocketknife and a pair of pliers. He also told us that if things "Go Bad," as he put it, we could live for over a week off the blubber from a left over seal carcass  and that by drinking our own urine we could stave off hypothermia.

Dan: (laughing) At that point Melissa turned to me and whispered, " If things 'Go Bad' I am a goner". We were laughing hysterically. The driver had to think we were nuts.

MG: Ok, Dan, lets skip the rest of your survival training and go to when you're out on the ice of lake Clarke shooting pictures of Melissa. What happened?

Melissa: You don't want to hear the proper way to prepare a penguin?

MG: Prepare him for what?

Melissa: (laughing loudly) That's what I said! Then the guide got all serious and said, (using gruff voice) Listen here girly tangs can go bad fast out here on de ice. Ya have to be ready for anythin." (normal voice)  He didn't know how right he was about to become.

MG: When did things....

Melissa: (jokingly) Go bad?

MG: I'm loosing control of this interview.

Melissa: (speaking to interviewer) Sorry I'll behave. Dan when did things go bad

Dan: Oh I'd say about the time when the huge white paw knocked me on my ass

MG: Tell us from the start

Dan: I was shooting Melissa, she was her usual gorgeous self, but we just couldn't get a shot that we were both satisfied with. Then I noticed all of a sudden Melissa's eyes got very wide. I knew something was behind me, I turned around and Wham! all I saw was the huge white paw that knocked me down. From there, it's a blur. I felt the bear clawing at my backpack; thank god, I was still wearing it. It was throwing me around like a rag doll.

MG: Could you see Melissa at that point.

Dan: Only glimpses of her as the bear was swinging me around. I was screaming for her to run. I knew we didn't have any weapons that would phase such a beast. I thought this is it, I'm dead.

MG: Where was your expert guide at this point?

Melissa: Apparently the survival tip for polar bears is not to get out of the snow cat.

MG: (to Melissa) What did you do?

Melissa: Well to tell you the truth I just reacted and grabbed the first thing I saw to use as a weapon.

Dan: Unfortunately, not to sound ungrateful, it was my five thousand-dollar camera & tripod. She whacked it over the head and camera parts flew everywhere.

Melissa: Well it would have been a little hard to use with  your arms chewed off!

Dan: (smiling)  Point taken, she  did save my life. Had she not distracted the bear, I would have been a goner for sure. At that point it turned away from me and started for her. It reared up on its hind legs. I remember how small she looked next to it, I mean this thing towered over her.

MG: Melissa did you have a plan?

Melissa: Plan!  I was terrified!  I ran back to the snow cat I was literally waiting to be dragged down from behind. A million things were running through my head one thing was a story I had read when I was a little girl in Canada about a woman who killed a grizzly bear by hitting it right between the eyes with a two by four-something to do with a seam in their scull being a weak point.

MG: Was the story true?

Melissa: I have no idea but when I was standing on the track of the snow cat with a roaring bear less than a foot away I was out of options.

MG: So, you struck it with your fist?

Dan: It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. POW! She knocked that bear flat with one punch! It fell dead in its tracks. 1200 pounds of bear dropped by a 5'4" 120 pound woman. I knew she was strong but I had no idea she was capable of that!

MG: One punch, huh Melissa?

Melissa: Actually, it was more than one. The first time I hit it squarely between the eyes. It looked somewhat stunned from the blow so I hit it a second time. The bear kind of wobbled and its head dropped down so I hit it with an upper cut. That's when it fell over.

Dan: That's not the whole story. When the bear's head dropped down she actually lifted up its chin with her left hand to line the punch up, then she threw the uppercut that knocked the beast flat. She dropped that thing like a rock!  It didn't take a step back or anything it just fell over backwards like it was struck by lightening. It fell so hard it cracked the three-foot thick ice.

MG: So it actually took you three punches to finish the beast off?

Melissa: Not bad for a girly huh? (Melissa giggles)

MG: So then what happens? You got this huge bear stretched out on the ice, what did you do next?

Melissa: Yes, Dan tell her what you did next.

Dan: I checked it to make sure that the bear was dead.

MG: Then?

Melissa: Dan told me it was, I belive the term he used was " deader than a doornail."

Dan: At that pointMelissa told me to go grab my spare camera. I knew what she was thinking and I was right.  By the time I got back with the camera she was stretched out in a sexy pose on top of that bear like it was gigantic rug. It was the sexiest shot I have ever taken. It was breathtaking to see her posing on a beast that she actually over powered. Stunning is the only thing that describes it. No wonder it was all over the news.

MG: Did you ever think that cover shot would get so much attention.

Dan: I knew it was incredible

Melissa: It was just another shot to me. I will tell you that I never realized bears had such soft fur. It was warm and fluffy.   I was very comfortable. I guess it showed in the pictures. I even thought of asking if I could have it made into a rug. ( Melissa grins sheepishly)

MG: Well at least you got a nice rug out of the deal. We'll have to get some pictures. I understand though you were far from out of trouble. Tell us what happened next.

Melissa: Dan was shooting me posing on the bear when we saw a snow mobile approaching. It was pulling a large sled behind it. It pulled into our camp then stopped. A man wearing a ranger's jacket got off and walked over to us. He was carrying a very large  rifle. He told us it was illegal to kill polar bears and that for four thousand dollars he would get rid of the carcass and forget he saw us. If not he would take us to jail. He told us that the fine for poaching was 20 thousand dollars and up to ten years in prison.

MG: Even though you were attacked?

Dan: That's when I noticed the blood on Melissa's hip.

MG: Blood! From where?

Melissa: At first I thought I had been clawed by the bear but their was no wound. I knelt down by the bear and ran my hands through its fur. It was the bear's blood. It had been shot through the left rear leg. 

Dan: About the same time she was doing that  I noticed something fall from underneath a blanket on the man's sled. It was a caged baby bear. The cage breaks and the little bear comes running towards us. It was obvious then that the guy in front of us was no ranger. He was a poacher. He shot the mother bear and he was going to sell her cub.

Melissa: That explains why I was able finish off the bear so easily. It had already lost a fair amount of blood and was near total exhaustion when it burst into our camp.  It was determined later, by real rangers, that she had been running for five miles following the scent of her cub.

Dan That's when things got really dangerous. When we saw the caged cub,  he knew his cover was blown.

Melissa: He raised the rifle to my chest. I have no doubt he was a half a second away from shooting me. Dan's lighting people were scouting the area for another site so it was just the two of us. No help.

MG: What stopped him?

Dan: He was distracted

MG: How so?

Dan: Well the bear turned its head and crunched down on his leg.

MG: The dead bear? (incredulously)

Melissa:  (Melissa takes a sarcastic tone) Yes Dan, please  tell her how it is a dead bear can still bite.

Dan: (Angrily) Hell, I said I was sorry! The damn thing seemed dead to me!

MG: Yikes!

Dan: (Eager to change the subject) Let's get back to the story. This guy is screaming like a banshee. The bear is really tearing in to his leg. He's trying to point the rifle down and kill the thing. In the process, he shoots his other foot! (Dan laughs hysterically) Then Melissa cold cocks the guy. Bam! Right in the kisser, I think she hit him harder than she hit the bear! He slid twenty feet across the ice!

MG: What about the mother bear?

Melissa: The bullet had grazed it's head knocking it unconscious again. I was left standing over it with the rifle.

MG: So you got your rug after all.  I mean it was wounded and you couldn't leave it out there to suffer. You had to shoot it right?

Melissa: Wrong, I figured being shot twice in one day was enough.

MG: So What did you do?

Dan: Duct tape.

MG: Excuse me?

Dan: It was her idea. She used duct tape to tie it up. It took two rolls but by the time she was done it wasn't going anywhere. Then we used the radio to call for help.

Melissa: Apparently his survival training didn't include radio operation.

MG: Who showed up this time?

Melissa: Ranger Steve Stoles. It was funny, he said, he thought he was hallucinating because when he pulled up he saw; a polar bear bound with duct tape, a woman, wearing fur boots and a bikini, holding a baby bear and a man scrunched up in a tiny cage. (she laughs) I guess you don't see many taped up polar bears on the frozen tundra.

Dan: Not to mention women in bikini's

MG: Hold it  go back a second. Did you say a man scrunched up in a little cage, you didn't?

Melissa: Oh yes we did! Poetic justice don't you think? If it were up to me, he'd be in that little cage forever.

Dan: Well his cage may be bigger now but he is going to be in it forever. It turns out he shot and almost killed a ranger, the one he got the jacket from.

MG: That's very scary. He wouldn't have hesitated to kill you.

Melissa: We were lucky

MG: So wrap this up. How are the bears now?

Melissa: Well the park service was well equipped to handle the situation. The mother will be all right. They transported her to their bear facility in Pile Bay. I went also; I held the baby all the way. They didn't want to put him in with his mother because they didn't want her moving around a lot. It was hard when they took him from me. He was just so cute. He was just a tiny soft ball of fur with big brown eyes. I do understand why they don't want him getting used to people though. I hope he grows up to stay far far away from people. The farther he stays away from people the better for both.

MG: (to Melissa) So that's it? You don't have a bearskin rug after all? 

Melissa: No, as warm and soft as it is,  that's really not my style. What I do have is a photo of Mother and Cub.  Ranger Steve sent it to me. The mother is still recovering. If it's ok with MG:, I would like to post the pictures and this interview on my Website.

MG: Hey feel free, a new magazine like ours needs all the advertisement it can get and thanks to you, Dan, and that incredible photo we've been getting more than our share. Use what ever you want and thank you both, very much, for your time.

Dan: Wait the stories not completely through.

MG: Really?

Dan: Yeah. You heard how she saved my life; how she knocked out a monster bear; how she disarmed and subdued a killer that was holding us at gunpoint. What you  haven't heard is how she packed the bears wounds with snow to stop the bleeding and how she held the terrified cub, until help arrived, stroking it until it fell asleep in her arms. Sure she's strong and beautiful but she's also a lot more.  What I'm saying is you couldn't have picked a more perfect woman to feature in your premiere issue