The beautiful state of Alaska is the only place in the entire United States where all three bear species – polar, black, and brown – can be found.
In Alaska and the Arctic in general, polar bears can be found as far south as St. Lawrence Island, with occasional appearances on St. Matthew Island and the Kuskokwim Delta in wintertime.
Come summer time, they are most frequently spotted around the edge of pack ice in the Chukchi Sea and Arctic Ocean. Polar bears have also been known to inhabit Wrangel Island and other Russian Islands, islands in the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, and Spitsbergen - as well as Alaska's northern coast - in order to den and raise their young.
While the city of Anchorage is a great place to view wild black and brown bears, you won't find polar bears here. To find polar bears, you'll need to head much further north in Alaska’s stunning Arctic Ocean coast.
Arctic Air Expeditions offers special tours that will take you to prime viewing areas during October and November when the highest concentration of polar bears are present on land. During the rest of the year they usually migrate to the sea ice, making it harder to spot them in their natural habitat.
If you’re looking for something more reachable, you can also find polar bears at the Alaska Zoo, in Anchorage, where a Polar bear named Cranbeary resides.
