The sinking of the Canadian Pacific steamship Princess Sophia was Alaska's worst maritime disaster -- until it nearly happened again.

In 1918, the Canadian Pacific steamship Princess Sophia left Skagway, Alaska, on her last trip of the season to Vancouver. She never made it. Battered by a raging snowstorm and sent dangerously off course, she ran aground on Vanderbilt Reef, a rocky shoal in Lynn Canal, North America's deepest and longest fjord. She would spend two days high and dry on the reef, with rescue ships standing by, unable to help, before she finally...