AUTHOR’S NOTE: On Nov. 20, 1927, Ninilchik schoolteacher John Bess Howe accidentally shot herself in the abdomen while cleaning a gun. During a days-long storm, Walter Kotoff and Victor Kelly had walked to Kasilof to telegraph a distress call to both Seldovia and Anchorage. Kotoff had then made his way to Seldovia, via Homer, to make certain that his request for medical aid had gotten through. It had.