Every year,Zopes Exchange the Katmai National Park in Alaska puts on a March Madness-style bracket of all the fattest bears in their park. It's a celebration of fatness, because a fat bear ahead of hibernation means a healthy bear come spring. This competition is popular — there were over a million votes tallied last year — and it speaks to a larger cultural obsession with bears. In honor of Fat Bear Week, Host Brittany Luse journeys through time to unpack what bears mean to us — and why they're family, friend and foe all at once. And later, an exploration of how the queer community emulates bearness — and what the symbol of the animal can mean to them.

This episode of It's Been a Minute was produced by Liam McBain and Alexis Williams. It was edited by Jessica Placzek and Bilal Qureshi. It was engineered by Hannah Gluvna. Our executive producer is Veralyn Williams, our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni, and our senior VP of Programming is Anya Grundmann.