Brown bears have been a part of my life for as long as I can recall. Back in their twenties, my parents spent summers running one of Alaska’s first brown bear viewing camps along the wild coast just north of Katmai’s border. In our home, brown bears were deeply respected—we saw them as individuals, each with their own distinct personalities, something research now confirms. “Living with bears means showing respect,” my mom would say. “We were lucky to be guests in their world.” Even now, bear photos hang alongside family pictures in my parents’ kitchen.
In the mid-1980s, their five years as bear guides happened during a turning point in Alaska’s attitude toward brown bears. Before then, bear tourism mostly meant trophy hunting. But biologists and staff at the nearby McNeil River State Game Sanctuary were starting to understand brown bear behavior, debunking the old belief that they were unpredictable.
They found that if humans acted predictably—keeping visitor groups small and guided, respecting the bears’ space and habits, and never letting them get used to human food—the bears could eventually tolerate people being around. Growing up, I visited McNeil River often and thought nothing of seeing 40 bears at once—it just seemed normal.
Brown bears were revered in our household, and we regarded them as individuals, with—as research now shows—their own personalities.
Nearly 50 years ago, Larry Aumiller, McNeil River’s most influential manager, began a program that’s still running today: bringing visitors to the same spot every summer to watch brown bears. Staff name each bear—like Braveheart, Solstice, or Ears—and add daily observations to decades of research.
At McNeil, I learned to spot how bears developed unique fishing styles—some snatched fish midair from waterfalls, others “snorkeled” in eddies, and some waited downstream for scraps from bigger bears. Mother bears could be fiercely attentive, scolding their cubs, or more relaxed, letting them roam freely.
The most striking memories were moments of trust and vulnerability: a bear named T-Bear nursing her cubs right in front of my camera, or a blond bear with a sunlit face curling up near my dad and me for a nap. As a kid, I didn’t realize these moments only happened because the land was carefully protected.
From above, Katmai’s green sedge flats are crisscrossed with bear trails, marking paths used for generations.
To Aumiller, being around wild bears was, in the broadest sense, about learning to share space with them. In Katmai, this isn’t new—traces of human presence go back 9,000 years, found along the same salmon-rich rivers where bears still fish today.
“People who don’t learn to share don’t thrive,” Aumiller once told me. “Those who share, do. If you can do that with an apex predator, you can do it with almost anything.”
One of the biggest dangers to brown bears is losing their habitat for good. Worldwide, they now live in just 2% of their historic range. Almost all U.S. brown bears are in Alaska, and Katmai’s vast, untouched wilderness is crucial—a single bear may roam over 50 miles each summer to stock up for winter.
The need to protect this land can feel distant—until you stand face-to-face with a mother bear and her cub.
Brown bears (Ursus arctos) are the same species as grizzlies. Standing seven to nine feet tall and weighing up to 1,500 pounds, they famously fatten up on fish and plants each summer. Some Katmai bears even became internet stars thanks to Fat Bear Week, an online contest run by the park and Explore.org where viewers vote for their favorite well-fed bear via a Brooks Falls webcam.
About half of Katmai’s visitors head to Brooks Falls to watch bears catch salmon. Floatplanes crowd the beach, new arrivals watch a safety video in a small theater, and two gift shops and a restaurant stay busy. Last time I was at the packed viewing platform, I got a 45-minute wait time and a restaurant pager with a bear picture. It’s a surefire way to see bears—but nothing like the wild coast, where small groups stand surrounded by bears in every direction.
Shaped by volcanoes and glaciers, Cape Douglas is part of Katmai’s 497-mile rugged coastline along the Shelikof Strait—all of it brown bear country.
The Katmai coast is reachable only by air or boat, and its isolation, plus abundant natural food, makes bear viewing safer here. With no roads or towns nearby, Katmai’s bears have never linked humans to food or danger. In places like Hallo Bay, tourists have watched bears for decades, following the same rules Aumiller and other bear biologists set up.