The Champion of chonk: Backpack takes the 2026 Fat Bear Week crown at Katmai National Park

Bear 89 — better known as Backpack — is the 2026 Fat Bear Week champion after defeating Bear 910 in Tuesday's final at Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve.

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The people have spoken: He is the chonkiest. The chonk champion. The chonkion, if you will.

Bear 89 — nicknamed "Backpack" — is the 2026 Fat Bear Week champion. (Courtesy of explore.org)

Backpack pulled in 103,334 votes to 98,253 for 910, capping a tournament that drew more than 2.3 million votes from around the world.

Backpack earned his name

And apparently, winning runs in the family.

Backpack is the son of Bear 435, Holly, who won Fat Bear Week in 2019. As a cub, he had a habit of climbing onto his mother's back while the pair crossed Brooks River — hence the nickname.

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His early years weren't exactly easy, either.

As a yearling in 2007, Backpack suffered a serious leg injury and spent much of the summer unable to put weight on it. At the time, park staff and visitors weren't sure he would survive.

A Brown bear catches salmon at the top of Brooks Falls at Katmai National Park and Preserve on July 30, 2025, in Alaska. (Hu Xiaolin/VCG via Getty Images)

But the leg healed, Backpack stuck around, and over the years he became a familiar face at Brooks Falls.

Now, at about 20 years old, he's got a Fat Bear Week title of his own.

Backpack survived a brutal bracket

This year’s competition was stacked.

Backpack crushed Bear 620 with more than 95% of the vote in the second round, then barely survived a semifinal showdown with Bear 164, Bucky, 79,945 votes to 75,805.

Then came 910, who had already knocked off Bear 909 and the 132 family on her way to the final.

Backpack won that one by a little more than 5,000 votes.

A brown bear looks out at a lake beach in Katmai National Park, Alaska, amid early morning fog. (Getty Images)

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And now he gets to celebrate the same way he would have anyway. By sitting in a river, eating as much salmon as physically possible and eventually disappearing for a long winter nap.

Oh, to be a bear.

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