Up early that morning, before his parents and the other members of their party, he relished the quiet after an evening of dining and dancing, celebrating his parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary in the first-class lounge. Along the shore of Alaska’s Inside Passage, the gray-green water lapped at the roots of the forested slopes. Above them, tall mountains loomed in the cool-gray sky. The ship was heading for the small town of Tongass where it would dock for the day, disgorging hundreds of passengers to swarm all over town, filling the curio shops or boarding buses for sightseeing out of town.In the distance he heard the drone of a single-engine prop plane. Lifting his binoculars, he trained his eyes in the direction of the sound. A small float-plane was approaching. Not an unusual sight. The towns along the Inside Passage, like Tongass, Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka, were located along Alaska’s Marine Highway, accessible only by air or water. There were no roads to most cities or villages in these remote areas of Alaska.
