And this year’s winner of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve “Fat Bear Week” competition is… Backpack!
The contest celebrates the resilience of the 2,200 brown bears that live in the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula.
Meet Backpack, your 2026 Fat Bear Week champion.
Backpack is 20 years old, weighs about 1,000 pounds and got his nickname because, as a cub, he loved riding on his mom’s back across the Brooks River.https://t.co/oiKNNy0A5Y
— Alaska Public Media (@alaskapublic) September 30, 2026
From NBC News:
The nonprofit running the long-standing contest announced Tuesday that the bear, known for his pacifist nature, won with more than 100,000 votes, narrowly beating Bear 910 with just over 50% of the poll.
Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies.
Backpack is the son of former Fat Bear Week champion Holly, who introduced him to the Brooks River when he was a first-year cub in 2006.
His name was inspired by his habit of climbing onto his mother’s back when they swam the river. This year’s fans cheered on Backpack in the contest’s Instagram comments, noting his lineage and reputation as a gentle giant.
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