At Caginish, tourists stumbled off buses, blinked in the sun, digital cameras and video recorders strapped around necks. The men always led the way, marching toward the rocks as if this was their domain (mechanical failure, aviation disaster) while the women lagged behind with children and pocketbooks. The Japanese tourists were the quietest, the quickest, the most respectful. The Americans the loudest. The Dutch always stayed at the spot the longest, sometimes with bagged lunches brought from the mainland. The drivers stood outside their buses, smoking, talking. The passenger cars arrived in such numbers that the Trachis Town Board debated whether to enlarge the parking lot and pave the paths that wound down to the sea. Some suggested they start to charge a fee.

The anniversary of the crash arrived. There were ceremonies on the island. Candlelight vigils, the ringing of ship bells for each passenger that had perished. And on the mainland in Halifax, dignitaries gave speeches, families gathered, the Symphony Nova Scotia played a piece of music that had been found floating on the waters: Richard Strauss’s Metamorphoses: A Study for Twenty-three Solo Strings.

That first year, Kevin Gearns closed the inn the week of the crash. He was surprised—and pleased—that some of the guests returned, those who’d been there the year before. Diana Olmstead drove up one afternoon with two friends and gave Kevin a bear hug. The Italian couple dropped in to say hello. The black family from Brooklyn spent a night at the inn, at Kevin’s insistence: they wanted to see the sun rise out of the ocean the next morning.

That autumn passed. The next winter. The parking lot at Caginish was paved and expanded with funds from Ottawa. A marble memorial was ceremonially set in place, engraved with the name of each passenger on the flight. The second-year anniversary arrived, and some of the same people returned to Trachis Inn. By the third year, it had become something of a tradition. Diana Olmstead sent out invitations and e-mails; and Kevin opened the inn only for those who’d been on the island that first week. Douglas, who’d returned by now, was skeptical at first. Who would want to come back to the site of such anguish, such memories? Yet Kevin understood the powers of the water, the beauty of the island, and why, despite everything, a few of them would want to return.

It was now the fifth-year anniversary, and they were coming once more. Five years, and so much had changed! Yet this one week in late September always seemed the same—the weather clear and flawless, the ocean a dark ultramarine. That morning Kevin picked white phlox and zinnias and distributed them in each of the cottages. In the early afternoon, he printed menus for that evening’s meal. He’d asked Douglas four times to do it—he was so much better with the fonts and the printer—but Douglas, of course, had forgotten.