Photo by Aleksandrina Andreeva on Unsplash
Bear 89, known to fans as Backpack, has been crowned the 2026 Fat Bear Week champion at Katmai National Park, dethroning last year’s winner, Chunk, in a contest that drew millions of votes from bear enthusiasts around the globe.
Backpack sealed the title by defeating Bear 910 in the championship round, pulling in more than 103,000 votes to claim the crown. The win marks a full-circle moment for the 20-year-old bear, whose mother, Holly, won the very same title back in 2019.
A Tight Final Round
The numbers behind Backpack’s victory varied slightly depending on the count, but the outcome was never in doubt. One tally put the final score at 103,334 votes for Backpack to 98,253 for Bear 910. Another report described the margin as roughly 5,000 votes, with total contest participation topping 2.3 million. A separate figure cited by a national park’s Fat Bear Week announcement put the overall tournament turnout even higher, at 2.5 million votes cast across the full week of competition. Whichever count is used, the message was the same: Backpack had captured the public’s imagination, and Bear 910 came up just short in a closely watched finish.
Fat Bear Week 2026 ran from September 22 to 29, with 16 Alaska brown bears competing to be crowned the fattest ahead of winter hibernation. The annual contest, hosted by Katmai National Park, has become a beloved late-September tradition, inviting people far beyond Alaska to tune in, watch the bears on live cams, and vote for their favorite as the animals pack on pounds in preparation for months of fasting in their dens.
A Familiar Face on the Riverbank
Backpack’s nickname comes from his early years, when he was known for riding on his mother Holly’s back whenever the pair went swimming together. That image, of a young cub clinging to his mother as she moved through the water, stuck with observers and gave rise to the name that would follow him into adulthood and, eventually, into Fat Bear Week history.
His story has not been without hardship. As a yearling in 2007, Backpack suffered a serious leg injury that left him unable to put weight on it for much of that summer. Park staff and visitors at the time were not sure he would survive. Nearly two decades later, the same bear has grown into one of the most recognizable and resilient figures on the Brooks River, now standing as living proof of how far an injured yearling can come.
Katmai National Park ranger Sarah Bruce said Backpack has been one of the bears visible on the park’s live cams since they were first installed in 2012, calling him ‘a familiar bear.’ That long public history appears to have worked in his favor this year, as voters who have watched him grow from a struggling young bear into a dominant adult rallied behind his candidacy.
Following in His Mother’s Paw Prints
The victory carries extra symbolic weight because of Backpack’s lineage. His mother, Holly, won the Fat Bear Week title in 2019, and now her son has claimed the same honor seven years later. The 20-year-old bear pulled in more than 103,000 votes to claim the title his mother once held, a milestone that ties two generations of the same bear family to the contest’s growing legacy.
Fat Bear Week has, over the years, evolved from a niche park program into a global phenomenon, with bracket-style matchups, bear nicknames, and passionate online fan bases forming around individual animals. The contest’s organizers use it as a way to highlight the dramatic physical transformation Alaska brown bears undergo each year, gorging on salmon to build up the fat reserves necessary to survive winter hibernation without eating. The bigger and fatter a bear gets by the end of the feeding season, the better its odds of making it through the lean winter months.
This year’s bracket featured 16 competing bears, each selected for their size, health, and visible presence on the park’s famous river cams. The contest unfolded over a single week in late September, culminating in the head-to-head finale between Backpack and Bear 910 that decided the 2026 crown.
- Fat Bear Week 2026 ran from September 22 to 29
- Sixteen Alaska brown bears competed in this year’s bracket
- Backpack defeated Bear 910 in the championship round
- Total tournament voting reached into the millions
- Backpack’s mother, Holly, won the title in 2019
With the 2026 contest now closed, Backpack takes his place among the most storied champions in Fat Bear Week history, a bear whose journey from an injured yearling to a chonky titleholder, and the son of a past champion, captured the attention of voters around the world.
