Bear built a structure to house brown bears and expanded it by ten times in 2018 to accommodate their growth. During the bears' hibernation, the refuge constructed a larger living area for the black bears in 2018. Housing a creek in the rear, it has spruce, salmonberry shrubs, and alders. A viewing platform overlooks the bears' living quarters, which is filled with water, trees, barrels, and swings. In 2016, the Kinnears planned a 40% expansion to the platform since the increase in visitors over the years had made it crowded. Naturalists stationed on the platform share information about the bears who can be observed wrestling and swimming. The refuge built a visitor center with an estimated cost of $1 million. It houses a gift shop, viewing places on both the bottom floor and top floor, and a classroom. When the bears hibernate in the winter, the refuge closes. It is open between May and September. In 2016, about 20% of cruise ship passengers who dock in Sitka stop by the Fortress of the Bear. Bears On July 27, 2007, the refuge adopted the brown bear Killisnoo, its first cub. At seven months old and 52 pounds, he had been rescued by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Angoon and was the runt. After Killisnoo's mother had accompanied a cook into a fishing inn's gallery, she had been killed. Several months afterwards, his sister Chaik joined him at the refuge after being captured. They were joined by other brown bears several years later. After the Sitka police received 70 to 80 bear complaints at the beginning of August 2009, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game used tranquilizers from a dart gun to capture three brown bear cubs. The Fortress of the Bear agreed to temporarily house the bears on August 16, 2009. The Bronx Zoo accepted three brown bears from the Fortress of the Wild in 2009. In 2011, the refuge was housing in one clarifier three two-year-old brown bear siblings, Toby, Balloo and Lucky, and two other bears in a neighboring clarifier (Killisnoo and Chaik). A female brown bear cub named Pandora temporarily stayed at the refuge for a weeks in mid-2011 before being relocated to Montana Grizzly Encounter. For its show Expedition Wild, National Geographic filmed Kinnear's and the naturalist Casey Anderson's interactions with Pandora. A nine-month-old 25-pound female black bear named Smokey joined the sanctuary