When Fat Bear Week’s final vote closed on Sept. 29, Bear 89, known as Backpack, finished ahead of Bear 910 by 5,081 votes. The official tally was 103,334 to 98,253, and Explore.org reported 2,503,731 votes across the 2026 tournament. That made Backpack this year’s champion in a contest built around a simple seasonal question: which Brooks River bear best shows how well it has prepared for winter? The accompanying photo is a representative stock image and does not depict Backpack or the contest.
Backpack’s name comes from a detail in his early life. The National Park Service says he had an injured paw as a cub and was often seen riding on his mother’s back. The habit inspired the nickname that stayed with him as he grew into Bear 89, an adult male brown bear in Katmai National Park and Preserve. AP reported that his mother, Holly, brought him to Brooks River as a first-year cub in 2006; she had previously won Fat Bear Week.
The weeklong tournament lands during a stretch when food is abundant and preparation matters. Salmon return to Brooks River in late June and continue into fall. Katmai’s brown bears feed heavily during that period, storing fat that helps sustain them through winter hibernation. Explore.org describes Fat Bear Week as an annual tournament celebrating that preparation. The National Park Service’s bear profiles connect each animal’s story to Brooks River’s bears-and-salmon ecosystem.
The 2026 bracket ran from Sept. 22 through Sept. 29. Sixteen bears competed in a single-elimination tournament, with online polls deciding who advanced. Bear 89’s profile notes that he fishes along the lower portions of Brooks River in fall. The results reflect public votes, not a scientific weighing of every bear, so the title is best understood as a popular celebration of the animals’ seasonal success.
This was the event’s 12th year. The National Park Service says Fat Bear Week began in 2014, and its format has kept a broad audience focused on a remote river in southwest Alaska. The 2026 final was close: Backpack won by a little more than five thousand votes. The totals show the reach of the event without needing a dramatic finish or a staged rivalry between the animals.
The tournament’s before-and-after photos invite voters to compare bears across the summer feeding season. Official profiles explain the bears’ identifying numbers and offer details about where they tend to fish. That makes a vote one entry point to a park beyond the bracket: each bear’s profile connects an individual animal to Brooks River and the salmon run that supports it.
The biological stakes behind the contest are practical. AP reported that adult male brown bears typically weigh 600 to 900 pounds in midsummer and that large males can exceed 1,000 pounds before hibernation. The bears may eat as many as 30 fish a day while salmon are available. The stored energy helps them through winter, when they do not eat or drink and can lose about a third of their body weight.
The setting matters too. Katmai is a large protected landscape where salmon and brown bears are part of the same seasonal system. AP reported that about 2,200 brown bears live in the preserve. At Brooks River, visitors and online viewers can observe some of that activity, while Fat Bear Week gives people a shared way to pay attention to what happens before the bears enter their winter dens.
More than 2.5 million votes do not replace field research, and a tournament cannot explain every challenge wildlife faces. But the annual event makes a biological cycle legible to people far from Alaska: salmon arrive, bears feed, and the stored energy helps them make it through winter. A public contest gives that process a name, a calendar and, for one bear, a winning bracket.
Backpack’s 2026 title belongs to him by the rules of the vote. Behind it is a longer record: a young bear’s nickname, a river where he fishes, and the seasonal work of building reserves before winter. The final count made the winner clear, while the Park Service and Explore.org profiles give viewers a reason to keep watching the bears after the bracket is over.
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