Bear 89, known as Backpack, is the 2026 Fat Bear Week champion. The annual online contest, run by Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska with explore.org, lets the public vote for the brown bear that best shows the fat it has put on before winter hibernation. He beat Bear 910 in Tuesday’s final, 103,334 votes to 98,253, according to the results table on explore.org. Alaska Public Media reports it is the first time he has been named the chunkiest bear in Katmai National Park and Preserve.
How close the final was
By Plainly Now’s calculation from explore.org’s table, Backpack won by 5,081 votes. That is about 2.5% of the 201,587 votes cast in the final, and it gives him roughly 51.3% of the two-bear vote. Alaska Public Media also put the gap at roughly 5,000 votes.
The semifinal was nearly as tight. On Sept. 28, Backpack took 79,945 votes to Bear 164 Bucky’s 75,805, a margin of 4,140 by Plainly Now’s calculation. Bear 910 had an easier path that day, with 110,385 votes against 36,428 for the “132 Family” entry. That is the mother bear who, Alaska Public Media reports, reached the semifinals with her three spring cubs. This was the first year the bracket included whole bear families.
The vote count
Explore.org’s table lists 2,503,731 votes across the tournament. Alaska Public Media, citing officials, reported “more than 2.3 million.” The two figures are consistent; the table’s per-match counts add up to its total. Voting ran Sept. 22 to 29, from noon to 9 p.m. Eastern each day, with no voting on Sept. 26 and 27, according to explore.org.
For comparison, explore.org’s Hall of Champions lists more than 1.7 million votes in 2025, about 1.2 million in 2024, more than one million in 2022 and about 800,000 in 2021. This year’s total is the highest among the years for which the Hall of Champions gives a total.
A final between two legacy bears
Both finalists are children of past champions. Alaska Public Media reports that Backpack’s mother, 435 Holly, won in 2019. CBS reports that Bear 910’s mother is 409 Beadnose; the Hall of Champions lists Beadnose’s titles in 2015 and 2018. Alaska Public Media calls 910 a female bear whom fans nickname “Dancing Queen” for her head movements while fishing.
Who Backpack is
The National Park Service lists Backpack as a 2.5-year-old subadult when he was first identified in 2008. That makes him about 20 today, and Alaska Public Media gives his age as 20. The park service describes him as “a medium sized adult male with a light brown coat that gets darker throughout the season.”
He got his name by climbing onto his mother’s back as a young cub while swimming in the Brooks River, Alaska Public Media reports; CBS says the two waded through the river. Ranger Sarah Bruce told Alaska Public Media that “He’s one of the bears that we’ve been able to watch on the live cams since the live cams were put in in 2012.” Bruce estimates he weighs between 1,000 and 1,200 pounds. That is an estimate, not a measured weight.
Bruce said some fans have argued, “We should vote for 89,” because he is older and “these other younger bears will still have chances to win.”
Why the fat matters
The point of the contest is survival. The National Park Service says bears in the Brooks River area try to eat a winter’s worth of food in about six months, with salmon available “from roughly late June through September.” The same page says “Large bears can gain a few hundred pounds in fat before they retire to their winter dens.”
Bruce put it this way to Alaska Public Media: “They have already won in the fact that they are set to survive another winter hibernation.”