A Canadian family is celebrating an unlikely discovery. Back in 1998, fourth grader Makenzie Van Eyk wrote a letter about the Great Lakes for a school project, CBC reported. Makenzie’s note, along with that of 29 others, were placed in individual bottles and thrown in Lake St. Clair.
More than a quarter of a century later, and River Vandenberg, a kindergartner at the same school, discovered Makenzie’s message in a bottle in almost the same place it went into the water.
“I thought it was a map to kill a grave digger or something,” River told the outlet of the message in a bottle, which he discovered after jumping between sandbars.
River’s grandmother stunned by the discovery, though she assumed it was written in recent years.
“We sent it to school,” she said. “His teacher contacted us later that day and said that was from 1998. I was shocked.”
Makenzie’s own daughter, Scarlet Van Eyk, is currently a fourth grader at the same school, the same age her mom was at the time she wrote the letter. Her teacher read the letter aloud to the class, and held off on reading the author’s name until the end.
“My mouth completely dropped,” Scarlet said. “And everyone was like, ‘Who’s that? Who’s that?’ And I was like, ‘My mother.’”
Inside the ‘Wild’ Discovery
Roland St. Pierre, the teacher that assigned the project, called the discovery “wild.”
“I’ve got a lot of ties to this building. I taught 33 years here. It’s close to me,” he said. “I had forgotten all about it, so it was a real shock. For it to survive 26 years without breaking down, it’s kind of surprising.”
As for the woman who penned the letter, Makenzie told the outlet that she “absolutely” remembers doing so.
“I think that process really stuck with me. This was also right when our school got a computer lab… one of the first things that I ever printed on paper and got to do something with,” she said. “It was memorable to do something like that, throw something and think maybe someone will find it later.”
The post Daughter Obtains Mom’s Message in a Bottle 26 Years After It Was Sent appeared first on VICE.
The post Daughter Obtains Mom’s Message in a Bottle 26 Years After It Was Sent appeared first on VICE.
