“Our land is over there,” Dad said, pointing across Kachemak Bay to a necklace of lush green humps in the hazy distance. “Our new home. Even though it’s on the Kenai Peninsula, there are no roads to it. Massive glaciers and mountains cut Kaneq off from the mainland. So we have to fly or boat in.”

Mama moved in beside Leni. In her low-waisted bell-bottom jeans and lace-edged tank top, with her pale face and blond hair, she looked as if she’d been sculpted from the cool colors of this place, an angel alighted on a shore that waited for her. Even her laugh seemed at home here, an echo of the bells that tinkled from wind chimes in front of the shops. A cool breeze molded her top to her braless breasts. “What do you think, baby girl?”

“It’s cool,” Leni said. She clicked another picture, but no ink and paper could capture the grandeur of that mountain range.

Dad turned to them, smiling so big it crinkled his face. “The ferry to Kaneq is tomorrow. So let’s go sightseeing a little and then get a campsite on the beach and walk around. What do you say?”

“Yay!” Leni and Mama said together.

As they drove away from the Spit and up through the town, Leni pressed her nose to the glass and stared out. The homes were an eclectic mix—big houses with shiny windows stood next to lean-tos made livable with plastic and duct tape. There were A-frames and shacks and mobile homes and trailers. Buses parked by the side of the road had curtained windows and chairs set out front. Some yards were manicured and fenced. Others were heaped with rusty junk and abandoned cars and old appliances. Most were unfinished in some way or another. Businesses operated in everything from a rusted old Airstream trailer to a brand-new log building to a roadside shack. The place was a little wild, but didn’t feel as foreign and remote as she’d imagined.

Dad cranked up the radio as they turned toward a long gray beach. The tires sank into the sand; it slowed them down. All up and down the beach there were vehicles parked—trucks and vans and cars. People obviously lived on this beach in whatever shelter they could find—tents, broken-down cars, shacks built of driftwood and tarps. “They’re called Spit rats,” Dad said, looking for a parking place. “They work in the canneries on the Spit and for charter operators.”

He maneuvered into a spot between a mud-splattered Econoline van with Nebraska license plates and a lime-green Gremlin with duct-tape-and-cardboard windows. They set up their tent on the sand, tying it to the bus’s bumper. The sea-scented wind was insistent down here.