Fortress of the Bear

We really enjoyed our visit to Fortress of the Bear in Sitka, Alaska. I know there are bears everywhere in Alaska, but we were there a bit early in the season so the chances of us seeing any in the wild was probably not going to happen, so we jumped at the chance to go check out this place, and I did bring my camera and long lens. I got a few good shots of the bears being bears and the kids got to see these large lumbering creatures walking around, eating, playing, laying in the sun and just enjoying life. The bears have room to roam, and play, and the people have a great viewing area above all the action. It is a bit small, I only hope they get the funding to expand, because I would love to go back and see more.

Excellent place to see and learn about bears. It's cool to see the bears communicate with the staff and ask for more food :) The staff seem to really like what they do and care for the bears. The bears get enrichment and seem to live a happy life after being rescued. This was the highlight of our visit to Sitka.

This was truly awesome. All the bears there were raised from cubs whose Mother's were either killed from going into a populated area to forage or ate something during a forage that made them sick, which was very sad. Beautiful black bears and a couple brown bears that were so cool to be so close too. Very nice and informative staff, answered any questions we had happily and knowledgeable. There was one bear that kept going back and forth from looking up at the people and standing in front of this door waving its head from side to side. They said that was because it wanted to go into the other enclosure cause she liked that pool and was trying to get their attention, it was so cute. One of the black bears when first come out seemed like she liked the attention and was just posing for the pe

We loved visiting this bear sanctuary. Five different bears here. They come as cubs that get rescued. Their habitats are really natural and feel like the wild in ways that zoos and other animal collections don’t sometimes. Amazing to chat with the employees here about the Bears and their stories and the different species. The Alaskan coastal brown bear is a sub species that only lives on three different islands called the ABC islands and always lives within 75 miles of the ocean. Adorable!

Definitely worth stopping in for a visit. We got to see all the bears, they were very active even in the rain. We saw some feeding and some training too! The staff was great, they answered all our questions and we learned a lot about the bears. They really seem to care! It's a great sanctuary for the bears. Support them of you're in town.