Bear 910 vs. Backpack: It's the final showdown for Alaska's Fat Bear Week

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After a week of fierce competition, Bear 910 and Backpack have emerged as the final contenders to be named the heftiest bear of Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve.

There can only be one winner of Fat Bear Week, and it's up to the voters to decide Tuesday.

The contest, which is in its 12th year, celebrates the resilience of the 2,200 brown bears that live in the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, which extends from the state's southwest corner toward the Aleutian Islands. Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies.

Last year's winner, Chunk — known officially as Bear 32 — clinched his victory at an estimated 1,200 pounds. He was handily defeated in the first round of competition this year by Bucky, who went on to lose a faceoff against Backpack, known officially as Bear 89.

This image from video provided by explore.org shows a brown bear known as "Backpack," officially named Bear 89, wading through Brooks River on Sept. 8, 2026, in the Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Photo by explore.org via AP

"Fat bears are successful bears," the nonprofit says on its website. This group gorges itself on the abundant salmon that return to the Brooks River starting in late June. It's there that they can stuff themselves to accumulate the fat reserves they'll need to survive the winter. To be featured in the contest, the bears must frequent the area around the river.

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