Brown / Grizzly
Where to find: Brown bears are found in much of Alaska south of the Arctic Circle. The legendary large bears live where the salmon do -- in southwestern Alaska and along the Gulf of Alaska coast, where they feed on spawning salmon each summer. In Southeast Alaska, look for browns at Pack Creek on Admiralty Island.
Grizzly bears are brown bears that live inland. They share the round face and shoulder hump of their coastal cousins, but they're smaller because of their diet, which has less salmon and more plants.
Tips: Brown bears can be watched safely by people who keep their distance, so you'll want binoculars or a long camera lens. The bus tours of Denali National Park usually come across the park's blond grizzlies browsing or sleeping. In southwestern Alaska, browns gather to catch salmon in the Brooks River of Katmai National Park; visitors watch from a viewing deck.
Anglers along the Kenai River and other streams occasionally meet up with bears. The best advice? Give up your fish if the bear wants them.
Black
Where to find: Black bears live over most of the state except north of the Brooks Range in the arctic. They are frequent visitors in towns surrounded by forests and love to supplement their diets with garbage. In the wild, look for them in the spruce and birch forests, where they eat roots, berries, grasses and small animals. In Southeast and Southcentral Alaska, they also eat salmon. Look for black bears at Anan Creek, south of Wrangell in Southeast Alaska.
Tips: Black bears aren't as big as brown or polar bears, but they should be treated with deference. Don't feed them, and do store your camp food in your vehicle, in a food locker, in a bear-safe can or hanging from a tree a quarter-mile from your camp.
Black bears aren't always black. At times their fur is bluish (glacier bears), cinnamon or even white.
Polar
Where to find: Polar bears live along the Arctic Ocean, and they're sometimes found down the Bering Sea coast. Although they wander into Barrow and other towns along the shore, they mostly stay on the pack ice, to hunt their main food source -- ringed seals. They also attack and eat walruses.
The most reliable place to see a polar bear is the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, where a bear named Ahpun lives.
Tips: Polar bears are big -- most males weigh between 600 and 1,200 pounds and females reach 400 to 700 pounds.
