"Painting the bears of Alaska offered me a new challenge - if I could get there," says Simon. "Finally, my name was pulled in a lottery which allowed me to visit the McNeil River sanctuary to observe bears fishing on sockeye salmon. I spent five incredible days there and probably saw seventy different brown bears. They were all around us; some as close as five feet. Absolute Alaska is a sort of composite image of my observations at both the McNeil and the smaller Mikvik rivers in the sanctuary."