In tracIng the 83-day

trek of a downed world war II

aIrman through the alaskan wIlderness,

one park hIstorIan embarked on

a journey of hIs own.

THE LONG TRIP HOME

The obsession began innocently. In 1994 Doug

Beckstead, a historian for the Yukon-Charley Rivers National

Preserve in Alaska, was escorting archaeologists to a site in the

park and offhandedly asked the helicopter pilot whether he’d ever

flown over the wreckage of a four-engine B-24 that had crashed

in 1943 on what is now parkland. Ever since Beckstead, a former

pilot himself, had heard of the crash, he had wondered why a

World War II plane had dropped out of the sky in the middle of

nowhere. “Sure,” the pilot said. “Want me to stop?”