It's the best week of the year on the internet! Fat Bear Week is happening right now, and if you know anything about us, you know we love a fat animal. (One of our best-selling stickers is literally called the Majestic Fat Bird.) So of course I had to paint a bear for it. 🐻
What is Fat Bear Week?
Every fall, the brown bears at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska, spend their days eating as much salmon as they possibly can before they go into hibernation. Fat Bear Week turns that into a tournament. Sixteen bears go head to head in a bracket, kind of like March Madness, and people all over the world vote for whichever bear they think got the fattest and most ready for winter. It's run by the National Park Service at Katmai, Explore.org and the Katmai Conservancy.
It started back in 2014 as a single day of voting on Facebook called Fat Bear Tuesday, dreamed up by a park ranger named Mike Fitz, and now people vote from more than 100 countries. This year's bracket is the biggest one ever, with 16 bears instead of the usual 12.
The 2026 tournament runs from September 22 to 29. You can vote in each matchup between 12 and 9 p.m. Eastern (there's no voting on the weekend), and the champion gets crowned on Fat Bear Tuesday, September 29. If you want to pick a favourite first, the Meet the Bears page has everyone's before and after photos and their whole life stories.
Why do the bears need to get so fat?
Because their lives literally depend on it! During hibernation the bears don't eat or drink anything at all, and they lose about a third of their body weight by spring. The fat they pack on over the summer and fall is basically everything they have to get through the winter. Moms have it even harder, since pregnant bears give birth in the middle of winter and nurse their cubs in the den without eating a thing.
There's even a word for the eating frenzy they go into this time of year: hyperphagia. Brooks River is the perfect place for it, because salmon run there from late June all the way to mid October, and the Bristol Bay region has the biggest, healthiest runs of sockeye salmon left on the planet. There are actually more brown bears than people out there!
My favourite part is that the voting isn't just about who's the biggest. Explore.org asks people to think about what each bear went through that year, like a mom raising cubs, an older bear fighting younger bears for the best fishing spot, or a bear recovering from an injury. That's how last year's champion, Bear 32 Chunk, won in 2025 after bulking up with a broken jaw. (He got knocked out by Bucky in round two this year, which, rude.) Past legends include Grazer, who won in 2023 and 2024, and Otis, who won four whole titles.
Why we love it
I spend most of my time painting animals with big personalities, and Fat Bear Week is basically a whole week of people falling in love with animals for their personalities. Everyone has a favourite, everyone has opinions, and every single bear has a story. It's also secretly one of the best ways to learn about a real ecosystem, since you can't understand the bears without understanding the salmon and the river too. And honestly, a round animal who has worked very hard to get round is my love language. 😸
If you want to watch them do their thing, the Brooks Falls bear cam is live, and it's the best thing to have on in the background while you work. And if you want to help the bears directly, you can donate to the Katmai Conservancy.
The bear I'm painting
For Fat Bear Week I started painting a brown bear catching a salmon, right at the falls. I got it going on last week's Draw With Me stream, so you can go back and watch it come together from the very first sketch.
I'm finishing it this Thursday, October 1, at 7pm ET, so come hang out and watch the salmon meet its fate! Draw With Me is live every week on Twitch and YouTube, and you can find the stream right here. Bring your favourite bear opinions, I want to hear them all. 🐟