Portraits of Kayakers

Finish What You Start

"Bear, be gone" were not the words that Nigel Foster wanted to hear his distressed girlfriend, Kristin Nelson, keep repeating. But the large white carnivore kept closing in on the two expedition kayakers, trapping them on a small beach in Ungava Bay.

In 1981, Foster soloed from Baffin Island to the northern coast of Labrador, where severe weather and frostbite put his life in danger. He was rescued by a passing oil tanker. It took him three years to recover physically and psychologically.

In 2004, Foster and Nelson returned to finish the expedition (their first lengthy voyage together before marrying) that he had started 23 years earlier. But now an aggressive polar bear was a mere eight feet away, ignoring Nelson's order-not to mention three flares that Foster fired in its direction-and threatening more than the expedition. "I was concerned that we were going to get eaten," Foster said later.

The bear eventually relented, but Foster, with an intense fervor that belies his peaceful exterior, was unwavering. "I never doubted that I would go back and finish it," he said. "It was always a matter of when."