In 1911, a young John Shaw from South Carolina had his first taste of flying.

In 1926, two years after the plane crash death of his best friend, he attempted a solo flight record in a refitted 1923 Curtiss Jenny. Then, with half the journey completed, his plane was caught in a storm, went down, and for seventeen years he was listed as missing, presumed dead.

The Longest Winter is a work of fiction, the tale of one man’s life. His story is one of despair and courage, tragedy and triumph—stranded on an uncharted rocky island, his body broken by the crash, John is adopted into a tribe of Aleuts, until the evacuation of the Aleutian Islands in May 1943.

This is John’s story.